Happy Birthday Freddy!

Singing legend, actor and circus performer Freddy Quinn celebrates his 75th birthday on 27th September 2006.  This Irish Freddy Quinn Fansite is dedicated to spreading the word in Ireland about one of Europe's huge music legends who is hardly known in the English speaking world.

Freddy Quinn was born in Niederfladnitz,  Austria on 27th September 1931.  His mother was an Austrian journalist and his father was a travelling salesman from Ireland (we're still trying to find out where exactly!). Freddy grew up in Vienna but later moved to Germany where he began singing around the clubs in the famous St. Pauli district of Hamburg (which later played an important role in the rise of The Beatles). 

Although he is practically unknown in Ireland, he actually got his first big public break here when he won an international song contest in Belfast in 1952.   He had his first record cut in 1954 and two years later in 1956 he represented West Germany in the very first Eurovision song contest.  There were only eight countries in the Eurovision iin Lugano Switzerland that year and each had two songs.  The contest was awarded to Switzerland but it's believed that Freddy came second for Germany (they never announced the results, just the winner).

Freddy's mostly sings schlager music, a type of pop music popular around German and much of Europe especially in the 1970s.    It consists generally of lively ballads, often with sentimental themes and memorable choruses.  Freddy's music is mainly about the sea and being a sailor, homesick and far from home.  Among his top hits of all time were "Heimweh nach St. Pauli" (Homesick for St. Pauli), Unter Fremden Sternen (Under Foreign Stars); Die Gitarre und das Meer (the Guitar and the Sea); Junge komm bald Wieder (Come home my son (young man));

He also made a number of films, including "Heimweh nach St. Pauli" with American actress and sex-symbol Jayne Mansfield in 1963.