Udo Jürgens

In 1952, Udo Bolan, as he was called then, formed the Udo Bolan Quartet in Klagenfurt, Austria, appearing regularly at the Café Obelisk in Klagenfurt with Englishman Johnny Richards on drums, Klaus Behmel on guitar, and Bruno Geiger on Bass. The quartet played regularly at various dance and jazz venues and also broadcast on Radio Alpenland and the British Forces Radio network produced by Mike Fior.

In 1950, he won a composer contest organized by Austria's public broadcasting channel ORF with the song "Je t'aime". He wrote the 1961 worldwide hit "Reach for the Stars", sung by Shirley Bassey.

In 1964, Jürgens represented Austria for the first time at the Eurovision Song Contest 1964 with the song "Warum nur, warum?", finishing sixth. The UK participant, Matt Monro, was impressed with the melody and covered the song (with English lyrics by his manager Don Black) as "Walk Away", which reached number four in the UK Singles Chart and number 23 in the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Jürgens' song "Sag ihr, ich lass sie grüßen" came fourth in 1965's contest, and on his third try, he won the Eurovision Song Contest 1966 in Luxembourg with "Merci, Chérie", which became an English-language hit for Vince Hill, another cover by Monro, and one of Jürgens' most recognized compositions. Jürgens' version alone sold over one million copies, and he was awarded a gold disc by Deutsche Vogue in 1966.

In the following years, Jürgens wrote songs like "Griechischer Wein", "Aber bitte mit Sahne", "Mit 66 Jahren", and—one of his biggest successes—"Buenos Días, Argentina", which he performed together with the Germany national football team in 1978 in Argentina.

In 1977, he invited The Supremes to appear as guests on his televised and recorded gala concert. The Supremes (Mary Wilson, Scherrie Payne, and Susaye Greene), who were on a brief farewell tour of Europe at the time, performed two of their own hits, "You Are the Heart of Me" and "You're My Driving Wheel", as well as a duet with Jürgens' "Walk Away" in English.

In 1979, he released a disco album entitled Udo '80, which spawned the hit single "Ich weiß was ich will". This song was also released as a 12" disco single in an extended remix for nightclubs.

On 2 December 2007, the jukebox musical Ich war noch niemals in New York ("I've never been to New York") opened in Hamburg's Operettenhaus. It weaves songs by Jürgens into a familial storyline, similar to the treatment of ABBA songs in Mamma Mia!, the musical succeeded at the venue.

Like Keith Richards, Jürgens is very famous in Argentina, where he has one of the biggest fan bases outside of German speaking countries.

Since 2015, Jürgens holds the worldwide-record as the artist with the longest presence in the charts ever—more than 57 years from his first entry 1958 till 2015. On 16 December 2022, a new album consisting of his legacies was released by his children. This reached #1 on the German charts on 24 December. Thus, Jürgens has been in the German charts for more than eight decades.

His brother, Manfred Bockelmann (born 1 July 1943), is a painter.

His son by his first marriage, John Jürgens (born 20 February 1964), is a singer, actor and DJ.

His daughter by his first marriage, Jenny Jürgens (born 22 January 1967), is an actress.

His uncle, Werner Bockelmann (23 September 1907 – 7 April 1968), was mayor of Frankfurt am Main.

As Jürgens was not the real family name of Udo Jürgens, he was not related to real Jürgens' like the singer Andrea Jürgens (1967 – 2017) or the actor Curd Jürgens (1915 – 1982).