1961

Basic information

Date:

9 March 1961

Venue:

Palais des Festivals, Cannes, France

Broadcaster:

RTF

Presenter(s):

Jacqueline Joubert

About the contest:

The number of participants continued to rise, with 16 countries travelling to Cannes for the 6th contest. Finland, Norway, Spain and Yugoslavia made their debuts. Perhaps encouraged by the success of ‘Tom Pillibi’, there was a notable moving away from what had been the typical Eurovision song at that point in the contests history, the slow, simple ballad. About half the countries entered more upbeat or contemporary songs. Despite this, the jurors went for a song which belonged in the 1940’s, beating the contemporary UK song into 2nd place. Three years after they gave the contest its first worldwide hit, Italy did it again, delivering a song which would sell a lot of records in a lot of countries.

The voting system remained the same, ten jurors from each country awarding 1 point to their favourite song.

Trivia:

Denmark rarely gets points from Italy - and entering with Dario Campeotto, born in Italy, did not help them much. Although Italy had split its votes between 5 different countries in 1961, Denmark did not get one single point from them.

Results

Pos.	Country	Participant(s)	Songtitle	Points	Rank
1	Spain	Conchita Bautista	Estando Contigo	8	9th
2	Monaco	Colette Deréal	Allons, Allons, les Enfants	6	=10th
3	Austria	Jimmy Makulis	Sehnsucht	1	=15th
4	Finland	Laila Kinnunen	Valoa Ikkunassa	6	=10th
5	Yugoslavia	Lililjana Petrovic	Neke Davne Zvezde	9	8th
6	The Netherlands	Greetje Kauffeld	Wat Een Dag	6	=10th
7	Sweden	Lill-Babs	April, April	2	14th
8	Germany	Lale Andersen	Einmal Sehen Wir Uns Wieder	3	13th
9	France	Jean-Paul Mauric	Printemps (Avril Carrillone)	13	4th
10	Switzerland	Franca di Rienzo	Nous Aurons Demain	16	3rd
11	Belgium	Bob Benny	September, Gouden Roos	1	=15th
12	Norway	Nora Brockstedt	Sommer I Palma	10	7th
13	Denmark	Dario Campeotto	Angelique	12	=5th
14	Luxembourg	Jean-Claude Pascal	Nous, Les Amoureux	31	1st
15	UK	The Allisons	Are You Sure?	24	2nd
16	Italy	Betty Curtis	Al di là	12	=5th

About the songs:

Conchita Bautista	Spain – Conchita Bautista – Estando Contigo (Spanish) Music/Lyrics: Antonio Guijarro/ Antonio Guijarro Conductor: Rafael Ferrer The first of the debutants, Spain gave us something with an international feel, rather than traditional Spanish which would be a feature in future years.
Colette Deréal	Monaco – Colette Deréal – Allons, Allons, les Enfants (French) Music/Lyrics: Hubert Giraud/Pierre Delanoë Conductor: Raymond Lefèvre If nothing else, Monaco’s 3rd entry will make you smile.
Jimmy Makulis	Austria – Jimmy Makulis – Sehnsucht (German) Music/Lyrics: Leopold Andrejewitsch/ Leopold Andrejewitsch Conductor: Franck Pourcel Baritone Jimmy sung a ballad which although pleasant enough, was never going to stand out this year.
Laila Kinnunen	Finland – Laila Kinnunen – Valoa Ikkunassa (Finnish) Music/Lyrics: Eino Hurme/ Sauvo Puhtila Conductor: George de Godzinsky Finland’s contest debut is a very gentle little number with bursts of strings between the vocal lines.
Lililjana Petrovic	Yugoslavia – Lililjana Petrovic – Neke Davne Zvezde (Serbo-Croat) Music/Lyrics: Jozé Privsek/Miroslac Antic Conductor: Jozé Privsek A ballad opened Yugoslavia’s account in the contest. As with Spain, it’s more international than traditional in style.
Greetje Kauffeld	The Netherlands – Greetje Kauffeld – Wat Een Dag (Dutch) Music/Lyrics: Dick Schallies/Pieter Goemanns Conductor: Dolf van der Linden The pace of the song is slow at first, but it soon picks up to utilise the sounds of the brass section of the orchestra.
Lill-Babs	Sweden – Lill-Babs – April, April (Swedish) Music/Lyrics: Bobby Ericson/ Bo Eneby Conductor: Thore Ehrling This is a perky little song with more than its fair share of whistling, always risky during a live performance. However, assuming that the whistling was coming from Lill, it worked well.
Lale Andersen	Germany – Lale Andersen – Einmal Sehen Wir Uns Wieder (German) Music/Lyrics: Rudolf Maluck/Ernst Bader Conductor: Franck Pourcel The Germans brought a bit of their musical tradition to the contest. There was plenty of accordion accompanying Lale’s flowing ballad.
Jean-Paul Mauric	France – Jean-Paul Mauric – Printemps (Avril Carrillone) (French) Music/Lyrics: Francis Baxter/Guy Favereau Conductor: Franck Pourcel France defended their title with something very different to all their previous songs. This is fun and bouncy and even finds room from a few ‘bing-a-bongs’
Franca di Rienzo	Switzerland – Franca di Rienzo – Nous Aurons Demain (French) Music/Lyrics: Géo Voumard/Emile Gardaz Conductor: Fernando Paggi Maybe in an attempt to win the contest for a second time, Switzerland returned to the formula which won them the first contest. In terms of the placing, it almost worked.
Bob Benny	Belgium – Bob Benny – September, Gouden Roos (Flemish) Music/Lyrics: Hans Flower/Wim Brabants Conductor: Francis Bay This song fluctuates between the quiet and the dramatic. Bob was making his second and final appearance for Belgium.
Nora Brockstedt	Norway – Nora Brockstedt – Sommer I Palma (Norwegian) Music/Lyrics: Jan Woelner/Egil Hagen Conductor: Øivind Bergh Nora was back, this time with a most understated of songs. Some would find it boring, others classy.
Dario Campeotto	Denmark – Dario Campeotto – Angelique (Danish) Music/Lyrics: Aksel van Rasmussen/ Aksel van Rasmussen Conductor: Kai Mortensen A lot of the ballads entered in the contest sound quite dated today. ‘Angelique’ has aged quite well and, although it lasts for almost three and a half minutes, the time doesn’t drag.
Jean-Claude Pascal	Luxembourg – Jean-Claude Pascal – Nous, Les Amoureux (French) Music/Lyrics: Jacques Datin/Maurice Vidalin Conductor: Léo Chauliac In a year when other countries tried something more modern or chirpy, the most popular song with the juries was this old fashioned French ballad sung by an old fashioned crooner.
The Allisons	UK – The Allisons – Are You Sure? (English) Music/Lyrics: Bob Allison and John Allison/ Bob Allison and John Allison Conductor: Harry Robinson This is possibly the most contemporary song to appear in the contest at that time. It reflected the UK charts and could easily have been a hit for the Everly Brothers, who in fact were at number 1 in the UK on the date of the contest.
Betty Curtis	Italy – Betty Curtis – Al di là (Italian) Music/Lyrics: Carlo Donida/Giulio Rapetti Conductor: Gianfranco Intra The second worldwide hit to emerge from the contest, as with ‘Nel Blu, di Pinto di Blu’, came from Italy. It’s almost ageless, only the style of the backing vocals reveal its age.