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Massiel

Massiel (real name María de los Ángeles Santamaría Espinosa) is a Spanish singer. She was born on August 2, 1947 in Madrid. She won the Eurovision Song Contest 1968 with the song "La, la, la", which earned 29 points, beating out famous British pop crooner Cliff Richard, who placed second that year with "Congratulations". She decided to leave her music career in 1996, but she released one last album one year later.

In 1977, she released an album covering the music of Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill in Spanish, called "Baladas Y Canciones De Bertolt Brecht".

Massiel appeared in the film Cantando a la Vida filmed in 1968, which profiled a winner of a European Song festival suddenly disappearing. Massiel had the lead role as "Maria". The movie was filmed in Andalucía, Spain. Massiel sang the entire soundtrack to the film, and raked in 9,020,397 pesetas from the box office.

After retiring to raise her first son, Aitor Carlos Sayas, Massiel returned in 1981 with a brand new sound and a new record label, Hispavox. Her label debut "Tiempos Dificiles" was a major comeback in Spain where songs like "El Amor", "Hello America" and covers of Mexican songs "Eres (written by Jose Maria Napoleon)" and "El Noa Noa (written by Juan Gabriel)" not only exposed Mexican talent in Spain but were very popular for the singer. Massiel would finish her pop comeback in 1983 with her career-defining record "Corazon De Hierro". Not only was this album successful in her native country, but it was also her reconciliation with Latin America. The song "Brindaremos Por El" was a massive hit worldwide and topped the charts in many countries. In many ways, Massiel came back to the continent that loved her so throughout the 60's.

During the 80's Massiel, for her popularity in the local market, was an invited artist at the Festival de Viña del Mar in Chile, At the time Chile was under the dicatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Massiel after singing for an hour, received the most important prize of the festival: "La Gaviota de Plata" (The Silver Seagull) In her speech thanking the public for her "Gaviota" she said: "Thank you Chile, I would like to let you know that Patricio Manns says hello from the Andes Mountains", the public cheered and celebrated her announcement. Patricio Manns is a well know composer, poet, member of the Communist Party of Chile who was in exile in Sweden following the September 11th, 1973 coup d'etat against Salvador Allende.

She re-recorded her Eurovision winner "La, la, la" in 1997, with a "hip-hop" sort of beat, background singers, whistling, and Spanish percussion.

In 2001 Massiel fell out of the window of her second-floor flat while "trying to close the shutters" and was hospitalized for a short period afterwards.

In 2005, Massiel appeared on the 50th Anniversary special of the Eurovision Song Contest, and sang the song that made her internationally famous.

In 2007, she became member of the Mision Eurovision jury, a show to select the spanish song for the Eurovision Song Contest 2007. She made a short comeback to music after eleven years in that show to sing one of the competing songs to introduce it to spanish public.

• The Ye-Ye Girls Website
• 'Cantando a la Vida' on the Internet Movie Database
• Information on Massiel's near-fatal fall from a second-floor window (in Spanish)

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