When Your Heart Is Full Of Love - Sen tietää kun onnen löytää saa

Juhani Markola sometimes covered songs that were quite unknown, but nevertheless interesting and enchanting. This is one of those songs. "Sen tietää kun onnen löytää saa" (You'll know when you find happiness) was released in 1977 both as a single and an album track on his "Rakkaudella" album. The lyrics were provided by Pertsa Reponen. The original song was a minor European hit for American Chris Montez (b. Ezekiel Christopher Montanez) in 1972. Chris is of course best remembered by his smash hit "Let's Dance" in 1962. He did a sort of come-back in Europe 10 years later with some English- and Spanish -language records, and this "When Your Heart Is Full Of Love" is an example of those.

Here's the pair:

Todo passara Maria - Mulle suostuthan Maria

The third Finnpicks Disco Week song is "Mulle suostuthan Maria" (Would you be mine, Maria). Hard to believe it's performed by famous Finnish balladeer Juhani Markola, who was nothing BUT a disco artist. But this is an excellent version of the song. For my taste, I would even consider it to be better than the original. The song appeared on the other side of the "Ääni puhelimessa" -single (see previous entry) in 1977. The original was called "Todo passara Maria" (Maria passes all). It was a modest disco hit for the Mozambique-born Afric Simone, who has been previusly finnpicked (see and listen here). Like Afric's smash hits "Hafanana" and "Ramaya", the song was collaboration of Stanislav Regal and Afric Simone.

Here's the pair:

Le telephone pleure - Ääni puhelimessa

We conclude this series of Finnish duet covers with an extraordinary duet. Juhani Markola and Lilli performed the song "Ääni puhelimessa" (Voice in the telephone) in 1977. Juhani is a singer and educator in singing. He's especialy known for his high-pitched tenor voice. He started his career in the 60's and his hey-day was in the 70's. The girl voice of Lilli in this song is unfortunately a mystery to me. As appropriate for the theme of the song (lyrics by Juha Vainio), she appears to be very very young. She might have been Juhani's own daughter, who knows ... The original song "Le telephone pleure" (The telephone cries) was done 1974 by the French singing legend Claude Francois. The girl in his song is probably named Frederique Bankrofft. You can see them singing together on this page. A little bit of trivia on Claude: he died in 1978 while standing in a filled bathtub, tried to straighten a light bulb that wasn't straight, and was accidentally electrocuted. On March 11, 2000, on the 22nd anniversary of his death, Place Claude-François in Paris was named in his memory, right in front of the building where he died.

Updated on 11.10.2009: added US version (1974) by country star George Jones and his daughter Tina.

Here's the pair: