Do you think you know everything there is to know about Anna Vissi?
Anna wins both the first prize of the jury and the national prize of the audience, at the 16th Thessaloniki Song Festival. The winning song was "As kanoume apopse mian archi", by Doros Georgiades and Sotia Tsotou.
"The lyrics and the music of the song I sang in that year’s Festival were composed by Doros Georgiades. When he wrote it, he called me, we rehearsed it in the studio and we sent it to qualify. And indeed it qualified, leading us to victory. Initially I had some inhibitions. But the fact that I wanted to do something entirely mine gave me strength and I appeared fearless in front of the audience. My success is shared with Doros Georgiades, because he wrote a song that I could make something out of. What I need to stress is that what I admire the most in this song are its lyrics, which refer to a very important issue of our times. Furthermore, I was surprised by the people's love. George Krimizakis and I went as representatives to check the voting procedure and we realised that the song was getting almost the same amount of votes from all areas (in Greece). When I finally knew that the audience was rewarding us for our effort, everything was done for me and I didn’t care if I was going to win the first prize. Manina mag., 1977
1978
Anna takes part in the Greek final for the 23rd Eurovision Song Contest with two (!) songs ("Na kseris s’agapo", "O kirios Nobel"). Both of them tie for the first place (!) and the representation of Greece at the ESC, but due to disagreements between the composers, her entries are withdrawn, and Tania Tsanaklidou represents Greece at the contest, with her song "Charlie Chaplin".
In November she takes part in the Tokyo Song Festival, singing the song "An to boris", composed by Kostas Tournas. The song still remains unreleased.
1979
Her second album "Kitrino Galazio" is released and its success is astounding (Double Gold – 100.000), considering the young age of the artist.
In "Dilina" music hall, along with Harry Klynn, Manolis Mitsias, Lizeta Nikolaou and Elpida.
Among the composers of "Kitrino Galazio" (Bougas, Vlassopoulos) we find Anna Vissi in two songs ("Agapi mou", "To etos tou pediou") - two of her rare attempts as a composer.
The song that remains a hit and is being played in clubs until today is "Aftos pou perimeno", a remix of which was also released in 1997!
1980
Anna finally represents Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest, with the song "Auto-stop", together with the band "I Epikouri". The contest takes place in Hague and Anna comes 13th, gathering 30 points.
New album! The title is "Ne!" (Yes!) and its greatest hits include "Oso echo foni", "To xero tha rthis xana" (Greek version of "Woman in love" by Barbra Streisand) and "Methismeni politia", which was the theme song for a very successful TV series by ERT television. The song, which is now one of her classic ones, was included in the album at the very last minute due to its very big success.
Her music label decided to release a best of album ("Ta kalitera mou tragoudia") containing some of her previous hits, as well as some songs found only in 7" singles.
She participates in the OST of "To tzitziki ki i parea tou", a children's musical by Sakis Tsilikis and Giannis Kalamitsis. She sings the main theme of the play, "Ta raftika tis yiayias". The album was re-released remastered in CD format, in 2006.
In "Stork" with George Zambetas, Stamatis Kokotas and Paschalis. Anna is one of the few singers at the time to introduce dancers in their performance!
Founding member of the Union of Greek Singers ("Enosi Tragoudiston Elladas"), together with other known singers.