Jimmy Makulis

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Dimitrios (Jimmy) Makulis (Greek: Τζίμης Μακούλης; 12 April 1935 in Athens – 28 October 2007 in Athens) was a Greek singer who had a successful career in German-speaking markets in the 1950s and 1960s, and is known for his participation on behalf of Austria in the 1961 Eurovision Song Contest.

Early career[edit]
Makulis became a successful singer in his native Greece before moving to Germany in the mid 1950s. In 1956 he scored a top 5 hit with "Auf Cuba sind die Mädchen braun". His biggest hit was "Gitarren klingen leise durch die Nacht", No.4 in 1959, and he continued to place charting singles until 1964.

Eurovision
In 1961, Makulis was chosen internally by Austrian broadcaster ORF to represent the country with the song "Sehnsucht" ("Longing") in the sixth Eurovision Song Contest, held on 18 March in Cannes, France. This proved unsuccessful, as "Sehnsucht" picked up only one point, from the United Kingdom jury, and finished along with Belgium's Bob Benny in joint last place of the 16 entries.[2] "Sehnsucht" is one of very few Eurovision entries never to have been recorded by the performer.

Later career
Makulis moved to the United States in 1965, and in following years lived and performed in Las Vegas. He moved back to his native Greece in 1985, and in 1990 took part in the selection for that year's Greek Eurovision entry, finishing fifth.  He returned to Germany in the early 1990s.

Death
Makulis died following heart surgery in an Athens hospital on 28 October 2007, aged 72.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLHxUTAsLj8


Guitars sound softly through the night is a Schlager song composed by the composer Horst Reipsch  and the author Erich Moderer  .

History
The song was released in 1959 with the then DDR DDR records AMIGA and was also the first great success for the hit singer Günter Geißler from Cottbus in Saxony, whose original version was also published by the record company Philips  in the West , At the same time, Munich-based record company Ariola also sought the right to release, but the song was to be produced with the singer Jimmy Makulis from Greece. The Greek Schlagertroubadour was successful right away and thus made a breakthrough in the German Schlagerpublikum.

For 28 weeks the hitmaker stayed in the top ten in the cover version of Jimmy Makulis and climbed to the 4th place. On the other hand, the original version, published by Philips, of his East German colleague Günter Geissler , who was unknown to the German side, was completely destroyed. Which was not least due to the much higher degree of recognition of Jimmy Makulis and his more intense media presence on the West German side.

But the success of Jimmy Makulis also had not very insignificant consequences for the composer of the successful hit, the clarinetists of the Berlin Rundfunk, Horst Reipsch. "I want to cash the royalties for this hit in hard currency," he says. He quickly moved from the eastern part of Berlin to the West and moved to Munich.

For the song itself therefore also negative consequences were not excluded. Because of the departure of the composer and the great success of guitars sounded quietly through the night , particularly with radio stations in the west of Germany and Radio Luxemburg , it was soon no longer possible to play and publicly perform on the East side of Germany  .

Very often the name Fred Bertelmann is also associated with this song. The hit singers had already been able to celebrate their first and greatest record success with the audience in 1957 with Der lachendes Vagabund. In 1959, he played guitar in the director's song " Hans Deppe" . The song of the same name did not appear in the film title (except for the film title) at all. It was not until many years later that Fred Bertelmann also released another cover version of this successful hit of the 1950s, which he produced in 1993  for his album