Grecian earn

'ORDINARY' SHOULDN'T be the first word that comes to mind when describing Nana Mouskouri, a woman who lives in a world of hyperbole.

She's reputed to have sold 250 million albums (some accounts say 300 million). Granted, she's had a bit of a head start on most musicians, having started her recording career 47 years ago.

She's recorded 1,500 songs in more than a dozen languages. She's been awarded 300 gold or platinum albums. She's worked as a goodwill ambassador for Unicef for more than a decade, and represented Greece in the European Parliament from 1994 to 1999.

She claims to have performed at least twice a week for most of her professional life. Now that she's calling it quits, she's embarked on a farewell tour that will take in 25 countries over some 18 months. The tour started in Denmark and passes through Hong Kong on Monday.

But despite all this, 'ordinary' is the word that seems most appropriate as we talk on the phone. I'd expected an angelic voice whose other-worldliness would leave me speechless. This is a woman who is said to have only one vocal cord - supposedly the secret to her voice.

Instead, I get, 'Hello, this is Nana' in a voice that could be my mum's. For a second I think I might be speaking to her secretary.

'Nana?' I repeat. 'Mouskouri?'

'Yes,' she says, and patiently waits for my first question. I manage to blurt out a question before she hangs up on me.

'Why a farewell tour? Well, I feel the time is right,' she says. 'I thought I'd be heartbroken, but I'm very happy. It has to be this way. I'd like to say goodbye while I'm still in good form.'

Another particularly important reason is she wants to spend more time with her family, she says. 'All of a sudden my children are grown up and married and have careers.' There's what sounds like a tinge of disappointment when she says she's 'still waiting' for grandchildren.

Then it's back to Nana the superstar, whose idea of retirement is to work on a book and oversee the production of a 600-song, 30-CD compilation of her life's work, while possibly working on two fresh albums. Mouskouri seems genuinely perplexed when she talks about the success of 'a little girl from Greece'.

'It's a very emotional thing,' she says when asked to explain her popularity and longevity. 'I think people like me because I can communicate with them through the music.'

One advantage she has over most singers is that she's multilingual, and is willing to sing songs phonetically in languages she can't speak, working tirelessly until she's confident about her articulation. 'If you can sing to people in the language they speak, it's a very personal way of touching them. It can be hard work, but it's worth it.'

Mouskouri attributes her success more to industry than to talent. It certainly had nothing to do with a physiological advantage, because she says the story about her having only one vocal cord isn't true. 'I have two vocal cords,' she says. 'One is very thick and doesn't vibrate much. This is the one I use for talking. The other one is more versatile, and this I think I use for singing.'

Although she's never been a critics' darling, she's the last to dismiss them. 'Of course I don't like it if they say something bad about me - everybody wants to be loved. But if they say something, then I think if they don't understand, it's my fault, it's the singer's fault - you have to make them understand.'

Ioana Mouskouri was born on October 13, 1934, on the island of Crete. She grew up during the second world war and the Greek civil war, and says the experiences were fundamental influences on her singing. But she won't fight hate with hate, she says. Instead of seeking to agitate people about past injustices, 'I have always tried to sing about hope and love. I have always battled hatred with love.'

She could have been a classical singer - she enrolled in the Athens Conservatory in 1950, but was kicked out seven years later for singing jazz in nightclubs. In 1962, US starmaker Quincy Jones produced her first album, The Girl from Greece Sings.

As much as she loves jazz, she says, at the time she just couldn't bear to be too far from home for too long. 'Quincy told me, 'You have to come here [to the US]; you can't do jazz from where you are.' But I didn't want to go.'

She still sings jazz and still loves classical music, but says she knew she had a special gift after her first single, White Rose of Athens, sold 11/2 million copies in six months. That, coupled with her desire to 'make a connection' with as many people as possible, ultimately led her to pop music. 'I will always love jazz, of course, but in the end, I thought, this was the path I should take,' she says.

Leonard Cohen is reportedly a fan, and so was Roy Orbison, who she says once tried to chat her up while 'growling very sexily' at her. In 1979, Bob Dylan saw her in concert at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles and was so taken that he wrote Every Grain of Sand for her.

Yet Mouskouri has never been cool. Not that she cares. Her image hasn't changed in five decades, and she says it doesn't matter. There's the schoolmarm spectacles, for example, which she refuses to replace with contact lenses.

'I thought about contact lenses, but I'm lazy, maybe,' she says. 'I never wanted to try them. When I was young, nobody ever said: 'Why are you wearing glasses?' So I think now, why should it be different?'

And the hair parted viciously down the middle? 'I just don't want something that has to be looked after, you know, every day. So I tried it long, I tried it short, and different styles, and just settled for this. Maybe it's a form of rebellion, but it's more that I wanted to concentrate on the singing instead of how I look.'

She remembers an interview in Paris when she had just started out. 'It was my first interview with a journalist and he told me, 'So you're a good singer. So what?' I don't know, maybe he expected me to be more than a singer, to be more provocative, maybe.

'I was young and couldn't speak French that well, so I didn't know what to say. I wish I could see him now, so I could tell him he was wrong. For a singer, it's all about the singing. It's not the image.'

She may be schmaltzy, but her refusal to bend to the demands of marketing is a refreshing change from the millionaire rockers in ripped jeans adept at turning rebellion into money.

Perhaps her attitude is one of the reasons she's enjoying a revival of sorts, as the shadowy adjudicators of all that's hip seem to waver, perhaps swayed by the argument that, just like Abba, she's cool because she's so uncool.

And it doesn't hurt to have that voice.

Nana Mouskouri World Farewell Tour, Mon, 8pm, Convention and Exhibition Centre, $398, $598, $798 (HK Ticketing, Tom Lee, Convention and Exhibition Centre, Fringe Club, Hotline: 3128 8288)