All Kinds of Everything…

by Peter Read

Very few people in our lives get to be known around the world by one name, and usually when it happens they are Superstars, however, the artist that I want to look at this issue is Irish born Rosemary Scallon, who many of you will remember winning the Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland back in 1970, so name wise at least she can be categorised along with Sting, Cher, and with a more modern twist, the 23 year old singer Adele.

Dana was born on the 30th August 1951, and contrary to my beliefs she was actually born in Islington in North London. Her father, who worked at nearby King's Cross Railway Station as a porter, had been forced to leave his beloved Ireland due to the high unemployment as a result of the war. However, within a few years, when Dana was five, the family was once again being forced into a move due to the London smog and the harmful effects it was having on his children, this was 1956, the same year that London passed the Clean Air Act. The family were based in Derry's Creggan Housing Estate until 1967 when the family was once again on the move, this time to the area known as Bogside.

Brought up in a musical family, her father played the trumpet in his own dance band, The Imperial All Stars, and her mother was often their guest pianist. The couple had seven children, four daughters and three sons, Rosemary was fifth born, and it true star quality won her first talent contest at the tender age of six years old. Throughout her childhood she studied the piano and violin, self taught herself to play the acoustic guitar, sung in the school choir, and contemplated becoming a ballet teacher.

During the early 60's, she could often be seen performing with her sisters Eileen and Susan. However, Eileen left the trio to train as a hairdresser and the remaining duet after a successful summer season at the Portrush palladium, and upon being offered a record deal by Decca Records, went their separate ways as Susan decided that marriage and emigration to America was her future. Rosemary stayed on at school to take her GCE O-Levels, and after obtaining seven good grades, she was instantly snapped up by Decca, and her first single, 'Sixteen', although far from topping the charts, did give her invaluable exposure through local TV and radio, and it was at this time she adopted her nickname from school 'Dana' and then it was back to studying, A Levels in music and English.
Prompted to audition for the Irish National Song Contest due to take place in February 1969, she eventually came second, and now with much more media attention, and live performances on Irish TV, Dana was on the brink of something big.

The following year, Tom McGrath, producer of the Irish National Song Contest, invited Dana to once again take pat in the competition with the ballad 'All Kinds of Everything', it became Ireland's entry. Despite being ranked an outsider, behind the UK's Mary Hopkins with 'Those Were the Days' and the Spanish entrant Julio Inglesias, Dana was triumphant at the finals held in Amsterdam in front of a TV audience in excess of two hundred million viewers.

This was Ireland's first victory, and upon her return she was declared a national hero, the winning song was released as a single and enjoyed being at number one in Ireland for nine weeks as well as riding high in the charts of the UK, Australia, Austria, Germany, Israel, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, South Africa and Yugoslavia.

Dana's debut album, with the same title as the single, was recorded with an orchestra in only two days and included four songs written by the singer herself.

Following the huge worldwide success of her single, Dana must have been crushed when her subsequent releases failed to make much of an impression. Over the coming years, although her singles were not flops, they failed to grasp the imagination of the record buying public. Her biggest success came at Christmas 1975 with 'It's Gonna Be a Cold Cold Christmas' which peaked at number four in the UK and number three in Ireland. Whilst on promotion for her 1976 single 'Fairytale', Dana 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.
The media hype was proven wrong and Dana was once more back in the recording studio and a new stage in her career was born following the visit to Ireland of Pope John Paul II.

Following the visit and as a tribute to the Pope, in collaboration with her husband, they wrote the song 'Totus Tuus' which once again saw Dana at the top of the Irish charts in January 1980. It was also a turning point as Dana realised the huge potential of the American Christian Music market, and during a visit to the National Religious Broadcasters' con-ference in Washington, opened by US President Jimmy Carter, she signed a recording contract with Word Records. Meanwhile, Warwick Records issued Everything is Beautiful in late 1980. Subtitled 20 Inspirational Songs, the album contained covers of songs like 'Let it Be', 'Morning Has Broken' and 'My Sweet Lord' and became her biggest-selling album in the UK. It was followed by 'Totally Yours' in 1981, her first Christian album for Word. Following this, she recorded her second album for Word, 'Let There Be Love', containing a variety of tracks from up-tempo to an old Irish hymn sung in Gaelic.

In 1984, Dana took to the stage with a tour of America to promote her new Christian albums. Performing at concert halls, churches and colleges, as well as on TV and radio she soon became a household name with the religious community. She released her autobiography in 1985 in which told the story of her family life, pop career and ever growing devotion to God. The highlight of her career was to finally meet the Pope and perform for him in 1987 at the Superdome in New Orleans and in front of a crowd in excess of 80,000 people.
During the early 1990s, with her family now relocated to Birmingham, Alabama, she became a popular Catholic music singer and released a number of albums for the Catholic music label Heartbeat Records.

After returning home to Ireland in 1997, Dana became a candidate for the office of president of Ireland, standing as an independent under the name Dana Rosemary Scallon, the name she now used for her political endeavours. She came third. 1999 saw her win a seat

in the European Parliament, representing the Connacht–Ulster European Parliament constituency, again as an

independent.

She campaigned on family values and her opposition to abortion, contraception and divorce along with a Eurosceptic line on the EU.

In 2002, Dana contested a seat in Galway West in the Irish general election, again as an independent. She lost, scoring a mere 3.5% of the first preference vote in a general election where Independent candidates preformed well. In June 2004, Dana lost her European Parliament seat, taking 13.5% of the vote. Later that year, she failed to secure a nomination to the office of President of Ireland against the uncontested in-cumbent.

In 2009, Dana became a judge on The All Ireland Talent Show. In the summer of 2010, she participated in the Best of British Variety tour.