Lenny Kuhr: 'Happiness is music itself' 🇳🇱

Watch: Eurovision.tv’s exclusive interview with Lenny Kuhr (June 2021)

‘It’s going to be a beautiful album’ Lenny smiles, ‘I’ve used the guitar from 1969 a few times during the recording. It sounds nice when you put a microphone in front of it, so it will appear on some of the songs – it’s not forgotten.’

Lenny is talking about the guitar she used in Madrid 1969, when she won the Eurovision Song Contest with De Troubadour. The instrument had been lost for decades, after the songstress couldn’t remember what she’d done with it, until she received a phone call last year.

‘I bought the guitar when I was 16 from my old music teacher, but I couldn’t remember what happened to it after the Song Contest. That was until I got a phone call from the widow of a man I had a relationship with at the time of the Contest.’

‘I gave him the guitar at the time because he said that he wanted to learn to play, and because of course I had more money after the Song Contest, I bought myself a new, better guitar, so I gave the old one to him, and he always kept it.’

‘His wife knew that this was my guitar so she had the desire to reunite me with it.’ Kuhr laughs, before revealing; ‘he never played it.’

When Eurovision.tv caught up with the Dutch champion she was busy preparing for her first live gig since the start of the pandemic.

‘Still to this day my biggest pleasure is making new songs. Happiness is music itself. Yesterday we were rehearsing for the first time since the coronavirus situation began, and we were sitting playing for two days and we were so happy. When you feel like this, success can be the consequence.’

Watch: Rock the Roof, Eurovision Song Contest 2021 featuring Lenny Kuhr

And indeed, the success of De Troubadour was the consequence of Lenny, aged 18, enjoying her music. When the invite to participate in the Dutch national final arrived via a letter to her mother, the singer/songwriter told Mrs Kuhr not to interrupt her while she was working on new material!

Lenny eventually read the letter and the rest is history. She participated in the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest and shared the win with three other competitors from France, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Watch: Lenny Kuhr performs De Troubadour at the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest

Lenny Kuhr’s new album is due to be released in the autumn and you can watch the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest now.