Dana Rosemary Scallon - 1970s - Eurovision Victory and Pop Career

Eurovision Victory and Pop Career

In December 1969 Tom McGrath, head of Light Entertainment at RTÉ and producer of the Irish National Song Contest, invited Scallon to try again in next year's event feeling one of the entered songs: the ballad "All Kinds of Everything", would suit her. "All Kinds of Everything" became Ireland's 1970 Eurovision entrant and on Saturday 21 March 1970 she performed the song at the Eurovision finals held in Amsterdam, with an estimated viewing audience of two hundred million. She was the last of twelve contestants to perform that night, perched on a stool while wearing an embroidered white mini-dress. The UK's Mary Hopkin (already famous for "Those Were The Days") and the Spanish newcomer Julio Iglesias had been the odds-on favourites to win, but it was Dana who took the victory. This came as a particular surprise for Dana herself, who was planning to concentrate on her A-Level exams once the contest was over and had intended this performance to be her last as a singer. This was Ireland's first victory in the Eurovision Song Contest.

"All Kinds of Everything" - composed by Derry Lindsay and Jackie Smith - had been issued as a single on 14 March 1970 following its winning the Irish National Song Contest. Phil Coulter provided the musical arrangement for the Ray Horricks production. The track had reached #1 on the Irish charts dated 20 March 1970 - the day before its Eurovision victory - and would remain at #1 for nine weeks. Subsequent to the Eurovision contest, "All Kinds of Everything" spent two weeks at #1 in the UK and achieved success in Australia, Austria, Germany, Israel, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, South Africa and Yugoslavia. The song went on to sell more than two million units.

Dana's debut album: All Kinds of Everything, recorded with an orchestra in two days was released in June 1970; it featured four songs written by the singer herself. Dana was now represented by Dick Katz, a jazz pianist featured on The Goon Show who'd represented such luminaries as Jimi Hendrix, Dusty Springfield and Lulu. The follow-up single to "All Kinds of Everything", the Jerry Lordan composition "I Will Follow You", failed to chart however. After hearing the song "Who Put the Lights Out" on an album by Barry Ryan, Dana solicited the permission of composer Paul Ryan to record the song: her version - cut with Barry Ryan's producer Bill Landis - proved a strong comeback vehicle reaching #5 in Ireland and #14 UK in March 1971. Following this, Dana - continuing to work with Bill Landis - endured three years of unsuccessful singles broken only by the Irish chart showing of "Sunday Monday Tuesday" (#4) in 1973. This lack of success caused her agent Dick Katz to recommend Dana join Dick Leahy (former head of Bell Records UK) on his new GTO record label formed in 1974.

Dana debuted on GTO with "Please Tell Him That I Said Hello" a song written by Mike Shepstone and Peter Dibbens. Released in October 1974, the song reached the Irish charts that November rising to a #7 peak. In the UK, the track spent ten weeks registering below the UK Top 50 before making its chart debut on 25 January 1975. Boosted by Top of the Pops performances on 6 February and 13 March 1975, "Please Tell Him That I Said Hello" rose to a #8 peak on the UK chart. This UK success gave the track a resurgence of popularity in Ireland where a chart re-entry saw the track again peak at #7 in February 1975. Dana also recorded a German version of the song; "Spiel nicht mit mir und meinem Glück", which reached #27 in Germany over a fourteen week chart run in the spring and summer of 1975.

Dana's next single was "Are You Still Mad at Me" failed to chart but Dana returned to the Top Ten with a Stephens/Greenaway composition: "It's Gonna be a Cold Cold Christmas". Released four weeks prior to Christmas 1975 the single gave her her second highest chart peak, reaching #4. In Ireland, the track reached #3 and went on to re-enter the charts the following year, peaking at #12. At the end of 1975, Dana collected two awards – Best Female Singer in Britain from the NME and Best Female Singer from the TV Times. The success continued into 1976 with "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again" entering the UK Top 40. In September however, while promoting her next single, "Fairytale", she lost her voice. Her left vocal cord, which had been cauterized the year before, required urgent surgery to remove a growth (non-malignant) as well as a small part of the cord itself. This caused many tabloid reports on the possibility that she may never sing again. Despite her inability to fully promote "Fairytale" - an upbeat pop song produced by Barry Blue - the single reached #13 in the UK and was also Dana's biggest international success since "All Kinds of Everything".

1979 saw the release of Dana's fifth album The Girl is Back. The Barry Blue production gave her a contemporary sound and a Top 50 single – "Something's Cookin' in the Kitchen", which peaked at #44 in the UK. A new phase in her career began after Pope John Paul II came to Ireland in September 1979, inspiring her to write with her husband the Irish chart-topper "Totus Tuus".

Outside her chart career, Dana had remained a popular personality since her 1970 Eurovision win. She had played the part of a tinker girl in Flight of the Doves (1971), a children's adventure film starring Ron Moody and Jack Wild and directed by Ralph Nelson. She was also an in-demand headliner for summer seasons at resorts and seasonal pantomimes as well as performing at venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal Festival Hall and a week of sell-out shows at the London Palladium. Dana also performed extensively in cabaret venues and was voted Top Female Vocalist at the National Club Acts Awards in 1979. BBC Television gave her two shows of her own: a series of A Day with Dana in 1974 and four series of Wake Up Sunday in 1979. For BBC Radio she presented a series of I Believe in Music in 1977.