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Lenny Kuhr
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Lenny Kuhr is a Dutch singer-songwriter, born in Eindhoven in 1950. On her tenth birthday she was given a guitar, and at music school she practised and performed with an accordion and mandolin orchestra. At the age of twelve she travelled to Auschwitz, which awakened her fondness for Polish, Yiddish and Hebrew folk songs. Spirituals by Mahalia Jackson were also part of her early repertoire. In 1967 she began her career with songs in the French chanson tradition.
Music and breakthrough
In 1969 she represented the Netherlands at the Eurovision Song Contest with De troubadour, a composition of her own with lyrics by David Hartsema, and she was one of the four winners that year. In the early 1970s she was more successful in France than at home. In 1970 she toured with Georges Brassens, and at the end of 1971 she had a top 10 hit in France with Jesus Christo. Her biggest Dutch hit came in 1980 with Visite, together with the French group Les Poppys. Her albums include Dromentrein, Stemmen in de nacht and Panta Rhei.
Influence
Kuhr sings songs with a personal, poetic tone and an acoustic accompaniment, close to chanson. She kept making records without again reaching the big charts. In 2021 she sang De troubadour again during the Eurovision Song Contest final in Rotterdam, in the segment Rock the Roof, and later recorded the song in five other languages.
Listening
Discography
Studio albums
- 1980Dromentrein
- 1988Lenny Kuhr
- 1997Stemmen in de nacht
- 2005Panta Rhei
- 2011Liefdeslied
- 2022Lenny Kuhr
Mentioned in other articles
- De troubadour Song
On 29 March 1969, the nineteen-year-old Lenny Kuhr won the Eurovision Song Contest in Madrid with De troubadour, jointly with three other countries, which all had the same number of points.