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Artist
Joe Grech
12+ albums
Eurovisionmaltese male vocalists70's Eurovisionmaltese eurovision representatives
about
Joe Grech, a Maltese singer, was born in Cospicua, Malta on 9 February 1934. He married Josephine née' Buttigieg on 24 September 1961. They have a daughter Marcelle, also a versatile singer. At a very early stage in his life, Joe started to play the trumpet with the Zejtun Band Club. His real love was however singing. On 3 April 1971 Joe was the first Maltese singer to represent Malta in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Marija l-Maltija".Since it was sung in the Maltese language, this rendered it the first Eurovision song which was sung in a Semitic language.If you click on the attached link,which can be found under References below, you will be able to enjoy the video of Joe's interpretation in that Eurovision Dublin night.The song was composed by Joe Grech himself, and the lyrics were written by Charles Mifsud. The orchestra of the Eurovision Song Contest was conducted by Mro. Twanny Chircop, the brother of another Maltese tenor and film star Oreste Kirkop of The Vagabond King (1956 film). Incidentally it was Oreste Kirkop who presented the winning trophy to Joe Grech on the night of that first 1960 Malta Song Festival. The song "Marija l-Maltija" was translated into Swedish and was included in the repertoire of the Swedish singer Lasse Berghagen. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
