Wencke Myhre's German recordings

Our pick of the pops

Wenche Myhre was a huge star in her native Norway and in neighbouring Sweden before becoming one of the biggest stars of the German music scene in the 1960s.

She was born on 15 February 1947 in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. She won her first singing competition and her first recording contract on her 13th birthday.

In the mid-1960s she began recording in German, using a different spelling of her name (Wencke Myhre) to help pronunciation of her name. She missed the charts with her first German release, 1964’s Ja, ich weiß, was ich will.

However, the following year, she made the top five with Sprich nicht drüber, a song she had performed at the Deutsche Schlager-Festpiele song contest in Baden-Baden, finishing second behind American singer Peggy March.

In 1966 she won the contest with Beiß nicht gleich in jeden Apfel, a classic fusion of beat and frothy Schlager, which she took into the top ten of the charts. From then on, she could do no wrong, enjoying further hits with Wer hat ihn geseh'n a few months later (which featured the surprisngly subtle Einsamer Boy on the reverse) and 1967’s Komm allein.

In 1968 she was chosen to represent Germany

at the Eurovision song contest entry Ein Hoch

der Liebe, and finished sixth (behind Spain’s

Massiel and the UK’s Cliff Richard).

The follow up, Flower-Power-Kleid, is a firm

favourite among fans, but its nonsense lyrics

(which translate as “She wears a ding-dong,

bama-lama, sing-song, teeny-weeny,

flower-power dress”) served only to bolster

the singer’s increasing sense of frustration

at the lightweight material she was being given.

That isn't to say that all her releases were of

the overtly Schlager variety. Her 1967 album

featured the gentle Mein Herz hat ja gesagt

and the classy Vergessen und vergeben,

as well as Einmal eins, a version of British

singer Jackie Trent's stompy Love is me, love

is you.

Though she enjoyed several further hits, notably 1969’s Er steht im Tor and 1970’s Er hat ein knallrotes Gummiboot, she turned to films, appearing in her first German film in 1970, in order to showcase her range of abilities.

She scored another top five German hit in 1978 with Laß mein Knie, Joe, a version of Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler’s It’s a heartache. She continues to perform today, and often appears with fellow Scandinavian 1960s stars Gitte and Siw Malmkvist.