19 jul 2022 om 06:01
Willeke Alberti will definitively stop giving major concerts. The singer still continues to sing in nursing homes, but her performance on Tuesday evening in the Concertgebouw is her last real concert. This puts an end to decades of hits by the singer. Especially in her early years, these were often translated for her from other languages.
By: Michiel VosAlberti carefully started to say goodbye to touring in 2019 when she celebrated her 75th birthday with two concerts in AFAS Live in Amsterdam. After that, a tour of the Dutch theaters had to follow, but it was postponed several times due to the corona virus. Her last tour will come to an end on Tuesday evening with a concert in the Concertgebouw.
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The singer first reached the Dutch charts in 1958 with a duet with her father Willy Alberti. In the decades that followed, a long string of hits followed. A strikingly large proportion of her best-known songs from her early success years are translations of songs that had already been released in another language.
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Mirror Image (1963)
Willeke Alberti scores one of her first big hits in 1963 with the song Reflection, which takes the number two spot on the charts. This song has even gone through two translations. Lyricist and songwriter Gerrit den Braber adapted the French song Your Tender Years from Johnny Hallyday to Dutch. However, the French version was also a reworking of the song Tender Yearssung by George Jones and written by Darrell Edwards.
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The Winter Was Long (1964)
A year later, Alberti even scores a number 1 hit with The Winter Was Long. This song was translated from English by Den Braber. The original is called Blue Winter and was sung by Connie Francis. Although this song did reach the top of the charts, it is Reflection turned out to be a bigger classic over the years.
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listen The Winter Was Long op Spotify.
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My Diary (1964)
Also the number My diary, in which Alberti sings about a relationship that ended after an argument, is not originally a Dutch composition. The German original is called In my calendar and was written by Karl Götz and Günter Loose and performed by Manuela. Pi Veriss translated the song into Dutch, with which Alberti eventually reached the fourth place in the chart.
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That Well-worn Phrase (1967)
Alberti regularly does a duet with her father throughout her career and there is That Old Phrase one of them from 1967. The song is a translation of Something Stupid, written by Carson Parks. Parks released it with his wife in 1966, but a year later it was also recorded by Frank Sinatra and his daughter Nancy. Around the same time, Willy and Willeke Alberti did the same. The versions of the Albertis and Sinatra’s were even on the charts at the same time.
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The song gained fame among a younger generation in 2001 when Robbie Williams released it as a single in duet with Nicole Kidman.
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listen That Old Phrase op Spotify.
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Gebabbel (1991)
Although Alberti is not known for writing her own songs, she has released a lot of work over the years of which she was the first performing artist. This is how well-known songs like Again and again in Being together written in Dutch and not previously published by others.
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In 1991, however, she shows that she has not yet forgotten the trick of interpreting a good translation. Then the duet appears Chatter with Paul de Leeuw. This song has had many versions before Alberti and De Leeuw try it. The original (Words, words) is in Italian and performed by Mina and Alberto Lupo in 1972. A year later, the song is even more famous in French in a performance by Dalida and Alain Delon.
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De Leeuw and Alberti are not the first couple to sing the song in Dutch. Their version is a cover (with a wink) of the duet by Ramses Shaffy and Liesbeth List.
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