Juha Vainio

A legend of Finnish music, Juha Vainio—widely recognized as Juha "Watt" Vainio—worked as a singer, songwriter, and lyric translator whose output stretched from the first years of the 1960s through the closing years of the 1980s. He entered the world on May 10, 1938, in Kotka, Finland, and stepped onto record with the 1963 single "Hum-Boogie." Those initial sides later surfaced as the 1966 collection Juha "Watt" Vainio, the earliest in a long line of greatest-hits packages issued across subsequent decades. His first proper album, Viisari Värähtää, arrived in 1972; the studio LPs that followed were Tulin, Näin Ja Soitin (1975), Kansi Kiinni Ja Kuulemiin (1976), Käyn Ahon Laitaa (1979), Albatrossi Ja Sorsa (1981), Sellaista Elämä On (1983), and Elämää Ja Erotiikkaa (1985). After Vainio passed away on October 29, 1990, in Gryon, Switzerland, an array of archival anthologies appeared. Warner Music issued the most exhaustive of these retrospectives, the ten-CD set Legendan Laulut: Kaikki Levytykset 1963-1990, in 2008. That same year the more selective double-disc edition Legendan Laulut: 48 Mestariteosta reached the Finnish album chart for 23 weeks and climbed as high as number two.