Esther & Abi Ofarim

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Esther & Abi Ofarim, 1963
Esther & Abi Ofarim, 1963
Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
New songs in the world
  DE 1Template: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / NR1 link October 15, 1965 (40 weeks)
Another dance
  DE 3 04/15/1966 (16 weeks)
Sing hallelujah
  DE 1Template: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / NR1 link October 15, 1966 (28 weeks)
2 in 3
  DE 1Template: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / NR1 link 10/15/1967 (22 weeks)
  UK 6th 02/24/1968 (20 weeks)
Up to date
  DE 11 December 15, 1968 (10 weeks)
Ofarim Concert - Live '69
  DE 14th 05/15/1969 (10 weeks)
  UK 29 07/12/1969 (4 weeks)
Singles
Another dance
  DE 32 02/01/1966 (2 weeks)
  AT 6th January 15, 1966 (8 weeks)
Sing hallelujah
  DE 30th October 15, 1966 (3 weeks)
Morning of My Life
  DE 2 10/01/1967 (26 weeks)
  AT 9 December 15, 1967 (8 weeks)
Cinderella Rockefella
  DE 5 04/01/1968 (10 weeks)
  AT 10 04/15/1968 (12 weeks)
  CH 3 03/26/1968 (10 weeks)
  UK 1Template: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / NR1 link 02/20/1968 (13 weeks)
  US 68 03/30/1968 (6 weeks)
One more dance
  UK 13 06/25/1968 (9 weeks)

Esther & Abi Ofarim were an Israeli singing duo that was internationally known in the 1960s. Her greatest hits were Cinderella Rockefella and Morning of My Life .

Career

The singer Esther Zaied met Abraham Reichstadt in the late 1950s . Both appeared in Israel with folkloric titles under the stage name Ofarim , which means something like fawns . In 1959, following their military service together, they founded the singing duo Esther & Abi Ofarim. The duo's first appearance took place at the Hebrew Theater Club, the Israeli national theater. Abi Ofarim was engaged as a dancer and Esther Zaided as a singer . The duo began with folkloric titles, where they established the division of labor early on, that she took over the vocal part while he played the guitar and provided the dark background for her bright voice as the second voice. As a singing duo in the background, the two played a scene in the 1959 adventure film Burning Sand , in which Daliah Lavi played the lead role. The first record with Jewish songs was released in the same year as the official duo release.

In the period that followed, appearances at national and international festivals increased - including the Song Festival in Tel Aviv and the International Music Festival in Sopot in Poland . They married in 1961 and in 1963 they moved to Geneva , Switzerland . After their success at the Eurovision Song Contest in Great Britain in 1963 , in which Esther took second place for Switzerland with the title T'en va pas , the couple also became internationally known. The magazine twen published in its records Edition album songs in the world . This was followed by supporting roles in films such as the comedy It was a pleasure (1963) and the thriller Das Wirtshaus von Dartmoor (1964). From the mid-1960s, the duo was constantly on the charts. The repertoire ranged from challenging hits and chansons to folk pieces and cover versions of internationally known folk songs . The breakthrough in Germany came with the piece Noch eine Tanz (1966). The greatest success there was the Morning of My Life , published the following year - a song by the Bee Gees that reached number two on the German charts. The duo achieved their breakthrough on the international market in 1968 with the title Cinderella Rockefella - a piece which also reached top positions in the UK music charts . In the same year there was an appearance in the Royal Albert Hall and a meeting with the British Queen .

In the second half of the 1960s, Esther & Abi Ofarim finally achieved the status of international pop stars. In 1969 they had received five gold records and were so well known that their songs were played on the radio in Arab countries such as Jordan and Lebanon . Only in Israel was the duo not played by many radio hosts. The reason was their success in Germany - for a number of radio producers there, a circumstance that was difficult to digest against the background of the Holocaust . It was only in the later years, according to Abi Ofarim, that the realization that the two were "Israel's best ambassadors" took hold. At the same time as the success of Cinderella Rockefella , there was a falling out with the magazine Stern . The magazine, which had temporarily sponsored the duo, had switched to more critical reporting. Abi Ofarim - according to Der Spiegel in 1968 in an article about these disagreements - dubbed artists and TV managers as "shitty Germans" and used expressions such as " fascists " and " Nazis " to clarify the ranking of appearances . Esther & Abi Ofarim made their last TV show appearances in early 1969 in Der goldene Schuß and the charity show Stars in der Manege , moderated by Peter Frankenfeld .

The duo's last concert together took place in Cologne in March 1969 . In the same year, the couple separated and in 1970 they divorced. Both artists then went their own way. Abi Ofarim founded a promotion company in Munich and also worked as a solo artist; Esther Ofarim initially withdrew from show business, but took up a long-playing record as a soloist again in 1972 and has since worked as a singer again. Abi Ofarim died in May 2018.

swell

  1. ↑ Charts DE Charts AT Charts CH Charts UK
  2. ↑ a b Abi Ofarim: “You have to be down to get some momentum” . Stephan Handel, Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 17, 2010
  3. ↑ a b c Esther and Abi Ofarim - biography in German . esther-ofarim.de, accessed on May 14, 2018
  4. ↑ Burning Sand (1960) . Film entry at IMDb, accessed on May 14, 2018
  5. ↑ Pop legend: Abi Ofarim is dead . Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 4, 2018
  6. ↑ a b Abi Ofarim is dead . Spiegel Online, May 4, 2018
  7. ↑ a b Esther & Abi Ofarim . steffi-line.de, accessed on May 14, 2018
  8. ↑ Musician Abi Ofarim dies . Welt, May 4, 2018
  9. ↑ Affair / Ofarim: Own ears . Der Spiegel, March 18, 1968

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