Jürgen Udo Bockelmann (30 September 1934 – 21 December 2014), better known as Udo Jürgens, was an Austrian composer and singer of popular music whose career spanned over 50 years. He won the Eurovision Song Contest 1966 for Austria, composed close to 1,000 songs, and sold over 104 million records. In 2007, he additionally obtained Swiss citizenship. In 2010, he legally changed his name to Udo Jürgens Bockelmann. He is credited with broadening German-language pop music beyond the traditional post-war "Schlager" (hit song) in the 1950s by infusing it with a modern pop appeal and French chanson style. His compositions and arrangements attracted fans of all ages, and he continued to fill venues in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland until his death at age 80. In 1952, Udo Bolan, as he was called then, formed the Udo Bolan Quartet in Klagenfurt, Austria, appearing regularly at the Café Obelisk in Klagenfurt with...
Jürgen Udo Bockelmann (30 September 1934 – 21 December 2014), better known as Udo Jürgens, was an Austrian composer and singer of popular music whose career spanned over 50 years. He won the Eurovision Song Contest 1966 for Austria, composed close to 1,000 songs, and sold over 104 million records. In 2007, he additionally obtained Swiss citizenship. In 2010, he legally changed his name to Udo Jürgens Bockelmann.
He is credited with broadening German-language pop music beyond the traditional post-war "Schlager" (hit song) in the 1950s by infusing it with a modern pop appeal and French chanson style. His compositions and arrangements attracted fans of all ages, and he continued to fill venues in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland until his death at age 80.
In 1952, Udo Bolan, as he was called then, formed the Udo Bolan Quartet in Klagenfurt, Austria, appearing regularly at the Café Obelisk in Klagenfurt with Englishman Johnny Richards on drums, Klaus Behmel on guitar, and Bruno Geiger on Bass. The quartet played regularly at various dance and jazz venues and also broadcast on Radio Alpenland and the British Forces Radio network produced by Mike Fior.
In 1950, he won a composer contest organized by Austria's public broadcasting channel ORF with the song "Je t'aime". He wrote the 1961 worldwide hit "Reach for the Stars", sung by Shirley Bassey.
In 1964, Jürgens represented Austria for the first time at the Eurovision Song Contest 1964 with the song "Warum nur, warum?", finishing sixth. The UK participant, Matt Monro, was impressed with the melody and covered the song (with English lyrics by his manager Don Black) as "Walk Away", which reached number four in the UK Singles Chart and number 23 in the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Jürgens' song "Sag ihr, ich lass sie grüßen" came fourth in 1965's contest, and on his third try, he won the Eurovision Song Contest 1966 in Luxembourg with "Merci, Chérie", which became an English-language hit for Vince Hill, another cover by Monro, and one of Jürgens' most recognized compositions. Jürgens' version alone sold over one million copies, and he was awarded a gold disc by Deutsche Vogue in 1966.
In the following years, Jürgens wrote songs like "Griechischer Wein", "Aber bitte mit Sahne", "Mit 66 Jahren", and—one of his biggest successes—"Buenos Días, Argentina", which he performed together with the Germany national football team in 1978 in Argentina.
In 1977, he invited The Supremes to appear as guests on his televised and recorded gala concert. The Supremes (Mary Wilson, Scherrie Payne, and Susaye Greene), who were on a brief farewell tour of Europe at the time, performed two of their own hits, "You Are the Heart of Me" and "You're My Driving Wheel", as well as a duet with Jürgens' "Walk Away" in English.
In 1979, he released a disco album entitled Udo '80, which spawned the hit single "Ich weiß was ich will". This song was also released as a 12" disco single in an extended remix for nightclubs.
On 2 December 2007, the jukebox musical Ich war noch niemals in New York ("I've never been to New York") opened in Hamburg's Operettenhaus. It weaves songs by Jürgens into a familial storyline, similar to the treatment of ABBA songs in Mamma Mia!, the musical succeeded at the venue.
Like Keith Richards, Jürgens is very famous in Argentina, where he has one of the biggest fan bases outside of German speaking countries.
Since 2015, Jürgens holds the worldwide-record as the artist with the longest presence in the charts ever—more than 57 years from his first entry 1958 till 2015. On 16 December 2022, a new album consisting of his legacies was released by his children. This reached #1 on the German charts on 24 December. Thus, Jürgens has been in the German charts for more than eight decades.
"Merci, Chérie", whose original German lyrics were written by Thomas Hörbiger, has been translated or adapted into several languages and covered by dozens of artists in both vocal and instrumental recordings. These versions include:
"Merci Chérie" by Claude Carrère and André Salvet (French)
"Merci" by Vito Pallavicini (Italian)
"Merci Cherie" by Baker Cavendish (English)
"Merci Cherie" by Fred Bekky (Dutch)
"Merci Chérie" by Al Sandström (Swedish)
"Merci Chérie" by Gina Trandafirescu (Romanian)
"Merci Cheri" by Andrzej Ozga (Polish)
Jürgens himself recorded many of the translations for international release, including a version in Japanese. More recent covers include Belinda Carlisle's 2007 recording of the French version.
In addition to recording Cavendish's "Merci, Chérie" lyric, Matt Monro covered five more Jürgens compositions, all with English lyrics (unrelated to the German ones), written by his manager Don Black. Four of these became closely associated with Monro (and were subsequently covered by Jürgens himself):
"Warum nur warum?" became "Walk Away" (a 1964 Top 40 hit in both the U.S. and UK)
"Du sollst die Welt für mich sein" became "Without You" (a 1965 UK Top 40 hit)
"Was ich dir sagen will" became "The Music Played" (1968)
"Illusionen" became "If I Never Sing Another Song" (1977), which was later performed by Frankie Laine, Shirley Bassey, Sammy Davis Jr., and other entertainers.
A fifth Jürgens song, "In dieser Welt", became "Lovin' You Again", and in 1969, Matt Monro recorded both Spanish and English versions, the latter not released until August 2012. (Monro also recorded Spanish versions of "Walk Away" and "The Music Played"; all three Spanish lyrics were adapted for Monro from Don Black's versions by Leonardo Schultz, who also produced the Spanish recordings.)
In one of his last recording sessions, Bing Crosby covered an English version of Jürgens' "Griechischer Wein" called "Come Share the Wine", which also was written by Black. The song was released after Crosby's death in 1977 as the title track of a compilation album and was later recorded by Al Martino.
In 1979, Marty Robbins released an English version of "Buenos Dias Argentina" that became a latter-day standard for Robbins.
In the early 1990s, German thrash metal band Sodom released a 'metalized' cover of the boogie "Aber bitte mit Sahne".
In 2009, the German band Sportfreunde Stiller covered "Ich war noch niemals in New York" together with Jürgens on their MTV Unplugged concert in Munich.
On 21 December 2014, Jürgens died of cardiac arrest in Münsterlingen, Switzerland, at the age of 80. In a cardiac arrest the heart is in fibrillation (disorderly, unsynchronized contraction of the heart muscle cells). Notably, in one of his later songs "Am Ufer" he sings about "having finally arrived" and in that song there is a line that says: "Am Ufer aus beschwingter Zeit liegt flimmern in der Luft; und voller Grenzenlosigkeit hör ich wie mich das Leben ruft" or in English: "At a shoreline of inspired time, there's trembling (fibrillation) in the air and with utter boundlessness I hear how life is calling me". Udo apparently had a foreshadowing of his death caused by heart fibrillation, which occurred while he was walking in the nature with his dog.
With Austria's success at the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest, the first since Jürgens' success in 1966, Jürgens expressed his interest in performing in the interval of the next contest. With his death, the organisers of the 2015 contest in Vienna paid tribute to him with a tribute day in the "Eurovision Village" on 20 May and at the beginning of the Austrian national final broadcast live on ORF 1. At the contest's final, violinist Lidia Baich performed an excerpt of his winning song live on stage during the opening act.
His brother, Manfred Bockelmann (born 1 July 1943), is a painter.
His son by his first marriage, John Jürgens (born 20 February 1964), is a singer, actor and DJ.
His daughter by his first marriage, Jenny Jürgens (born 22 January 1967), is an actress.
His uncle, Werner Bockelmann (23 September 1907 – 7 April 1968), was mayor of Frankfurt am Main.
Udo Jürgens was related to neither the singer Andrea Jürgens nor the actor Curd Jürgens.
Our Crazy Aunts (1961), as Pitt van Rees
Drei Liebesbriefe aus Tirol (1962), as Martin Hinterkirchner
Dance with Me Into the Morning (1962), as Max Kainz
Our Crazy Nieces (1963), as Pitt van Rees
Our Crazy Aunts in the South Seas (1964), as Pitt van Rees
Das Spukschloß im Salzkammergut (1966), as Udo
As himself
The Legs of Dolores (1957)
… und du mein Schatz bleibst hier (1961)
Hochzeit am Neusiedler See (1963)
The Battle of the Mods (1966)
Soundtrack
Montana Trap (1976)
Film adaptations
The Man with the Bassoon (2011) – Based on Udo Jürgens' autobiography
Ich war noch niemals in New York (2019) – Musical, based on songs by Udo Jürgens
Wolfgang Spahr: Casebook Udo Jürgens. Billboard, 26. März 1994
Excerpts from a thesis on Jürgens (2002) by Christian Mädler (in German)
Official website (in German)
Udo Jürgens discography at Discogs
Udo Jürgens at IMDb
Udo Jürgens - Ich war noch niemals in New York Musical (in German)
Austria
