Danny | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Birth name | Ilkka Johannes Lipsanen |
Born | Pori, Finland | 24 September 1942
Origin | Helsinki, Finland |
Genres | Schlager |
Occupation(s) | Singer, guitarist |
Years active | 1966–present |
Labels | Fazer, Finndisc, Edel |
Website | www.danny.fi |
Ilkka Johannes Lipsanen (born 24 September 1942), commonly known by his stage name Danny, is a Finnish singer and guitarist.
Still active, Danny's singing career is one of the longest in Finland, spanning over more than 50 years. He has recorded many evergreen hit songs.
He achieved some notoriety outside Finland in 2006 when the music video for his 1978 duet with the late Armi Aavikko, "Tahdon olla sulle hellä", sung in English as "I Wanna Love You Tender", became an internet meme. [1] Designed as a loose parody of the hit film Grease , the video's choreography was apparently intended to be "erotic and tantalizing" but in the eyes of many it principally succeeded in being hilarious. [2]
Danny was born in Pori. He started his career with the band Islanders who released a couple of singles, among them Danny's first recording which was in English: East Virginia by Joan Baez in 1964. During his national service Danny switched to his native Finnish and recorded two hits, "Kauan" ("Downtown" by Petula Clark) and "Piilopaikka" ("You've Got Your Troubles," originally by The Fortunes).
After the army in 1966 Danny launched his own management company, D-Tuotanto, and started his hugely popular and spectacular "Danny Shows" which toured around Finland every summer all the way to the late 1970s. During the 1960s, he recorded a number of hits, among them "Kesäkatu" (Loving Spoonful's "Summer in the City"), "Vähän ennen kyyneleitä" ("El angel de la guarda"), "Tuuliviiri", "Rebecca" and "Se eikö todista että muutuin" ("If I Promise"). In 1968 Danny appeared in Spede Pasanen's film comedy Noin seitsemän veljestä as a medieval troubadour and performed his song "Seitsemän kertaa seitsemän" which became another hit.[ citation needed ]
Some of the best known hits for Danny in the 1970s were "Vai niin, vai niin" ("How Do You Do"), "Maantieltä taloon" ("Son of My Father" by Chicory Tip) and "Kuusamo" ("L'ete Indien – Africa" performed also by Joe Dassin) in reality Danny´s "Kuusamo" is exactly based on the version recorded by Frank Farian, a version which Farian recorded using an alias-name "Exodus" as the artist name and produced the version by using an alias-name "Monfa" as the producer, the first and original version of the song is recorded by the band named "Albatros", where Toto Cutugno was the Lead singer. In 1977 Danny joined together with former Miss Finland, Armi Aavikko, with whom he had the extremely popular hits "Tahdon olla sulle hellä" and "Kaiken sulle antaisin".
A song by Jukka Kuoppamäki, "Tämä taivas, tämä maa", was a big hit for Danny in 1992. In 1997 performed in China and in 1988 in Turkey.
Danny and his band have a small cameo appearance in the 2013 British black comedy film The Double .
Danny has applied for the Eurovision Song Contest eight times in different eras.
Title | Year |
---|---|
"Pieni sana" | 1966 |
"Sua kutsun, Maarit" "Keskiyöllä" | 1967 |
"Galileo Galilei" | 1973 |
"Jos maailmassa vain ois kahva" | 1974 |
"Seikkailija" | 1975 |
"Ninja" | 1986 |
"Seven Times Seven" | 2004 |
"Sinä päivänä kun kaikki rakastaa mua" | 2021 |
Danny was married to Liisa Lipsanen until 2006, when they divorced.[ citation needed ]
In 2016 Danny started a relationship with Erika Vikman, a popular singer who is 50 years younger than him. In 2020, after a 4 year-relationship with Vikman, they separated.
Boney M. are a R&B, reggae, funk and disco music group founded in 1974, who achieved popularity during the disco era of the second half of the 1970s. The band was created by German record producer Frank Farian, who was the group's primary songwriter. Originally based in West Germany, the four original members of the band's official line-up were Liz Mitchell and Marcia Barrett from Jamaica, Maizie Williams from Montserrat, and Bobby Farrell from Aruba. Since the 1980s, various line-ups of the band have performed with different members.
The music of Finland can be roughly divided into folk music, classical and contemporary art music, and contemporary popular music.
Franz Reuther, known professionally as Frank Farian, was a German record producer and singer who founded the 1970s disco-pop group Boney M., the Latin pop band No Mercy, and the pop band Milli Vanilli. He frequently created vocal groups in which the publicised members merely lip-synced to songs sung by session performers. Farian owned the record label MCI and several subsidiaries. Over the course of his career, Farian sold over 850 million records and earned 800 gold and platinum certifications.
La Bouche is a German-American Eurodance duo best known for the hits "Be My Lover", "Sweet Dreams", "You Won't Forget Me" and "S.O.S." La Bouche was founded in 1994 by record producer Frank Farian in Frankfurt am Main. He worked together with techno DJ Ulli Brenner and producer Amir Saraf to produce the music, while American singer Melanie Thornton and American rapper and backup singer Lane McCray fronted the act.
"Walking in the Air" is a song written by Howard Blake for the 1982 animated film The Snowman based on Raymond Briggs's 1978 children's book of the same name. The song forms the centrepiece of The Snowman, which has become a seasonal favourite on British and Finnish television. The story relates the fleeting adventures of a young boy and a snowman who has come to life. In the second part of the story, the boy and the snowman fly to the North Pole. "Walking in the Air" is the theme for the journey. They attend a party of snowmen, at which the boy seems to be the only human until they meet Santa Claus with his reindeer, and the boy is given a scarf with a snowman pattern. In the film, the song was performed by St Paul's Cathedral choirboy Peter Auty; this performance was reissued in 1985 and 1987.
Maizie Ursula Williams is a British model, dancer and singer who became one of the original members of the successful 1970s disco music group Boney M. Though she did not sing on the studio recordings of their songs, she did perform live and subsequently established an independent career as a singer.
Kirill "Kirka" Babitzin was a Finnish vocalist and musician. One of the most commercially successful artists from Finland, his career spanned from the late 1960s until his death in 2007.
Olavi Uusivirta is a Finnish rock/pop singer, songwriter and actor.
Marcia Barrett is a Jamaican-British singer and one of the original singers with the vocal group Boney M.
"I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do" is a song by Swedish pop group ABBA. It was the third single to be released from their third studio album, ABBA (1975). The song was written by Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and their manager Stig Anderson, and was released in April 1975 with "Rock Me" as the B-side.
About Seven Brothers is a 1968 comedy directed by Jukka Virtanen and which was written and produced by Spede Pasanen. The film is a loose parody of the Robin Hood story. The name of the film is a take on Seitsemän veljestä the ground-breaking novel by Finnish author Aleksis Kivi.
"Son of My Father" is a song popularised in 1972 by Chicory Tip.
Monica Aspelund is a Finnish singer. She is the older sister of Ami Aspelund.
"Amado Mio" is a song from the classic 1946 film noir Gilda, written by Doris Fisher and Allan Roberts. The piece was lip-synched by Rita Hayworth and sung by Anita Kert Ellis. Grace Jones's rendition of the song on her 1989 album Bulletproof Heart was released as a single in a special "Brazilian Mix" in 1990. It became a significant dance hit in the US.
Agents is a Finnish band formed in 1979, playing rautalanka, schlager and rock'n'roll music. The head figure and musical director of the band is solo guitarist Esa Pulliainen.
Veikko Olavi "Vexi" Salmi was a Finnish lyricist. He wrote the lyrics to numerous popular songs for several prominent artists, including Irwin Goodman, Jari Sillanpää, and Katri Helena. His career as a lyricist began in the 1960s, and continued until his death. During his prolific career, he wrote the lyrics for over 4,000 songs, more than 2,400 of which have been recorded. In addition to song lyrics, he authored several novels and one collection of poetry. Salmi's latest work also included collaborating with Ilkka Lipsanen on a 60th anniversary album, and he also acted as a judge on a television program on music lyrics, Biisikärpänen
"L'Été indien" is a 1975 single by American-French singer Joe Dassin. In the song he reflects with fond memories of his lover, whom he met during an indian summer, but with whom he has now lost contact.
Jean-Pierre Kusela is a fictional character invented by Spede Pasanen and played by Vesa-Matti Loiri, appearing in the Finnish sketch comedy series Spede Show from 1985 to 1987. The character also appeared in Vesku Show from 1988 to 1991.
Erika Vikman is a Finnish singer and songwriter. Beginning her career as a Finnish tango singer, Vikman first received recognition after winning Tangomarkkinat in 2016. She later received further nationwide attention following the release of the single "Cicciolina" in 2020, which became her first top five hit in Finland. Her debut self-titled studio album was released the following year, and topped the charts in Finland.
Erika Vikman is the debut studio album by Finnish singer Erika Vikman. The album was released on 20 August 2021 through Warner Music Finland and Mökkitie Records, and peaked at number one on the Finnish albums chart. Production on the album was handled by Mika Laakkonen and Timo Ruokola.