#BIRTHDAY: José Velez from Spain is 71 today

There’s often a debate over whether a national final or an internal selection is the right way to go. A national final, and you run the risk of the public picking a novelty.

Our friends in Spain generally went down the road of an internal selection. In 1978, they got in the Dúo Dinámico of Manuel de la Calva and Ramón Arcusa to wrote a song for today’s birthday boy José Vélez (né José Velázquez Jiménez). They wrote one of Spain’s two winners, so what could possibly go wrong? José finished ninth in what was the biggest ever field at the time. Now ninth was fast becoming one of Spain’s go to finishes in the 1970s (along with second), so the Spanish delegation were probably not that disappointed. They did get a 12 from a country that was participating for the first time since 1966 too. Maybe they liked songs about dancing.

Authors: Riigi Ametnik, John Stanton

Source: OnEurope.biz