Johnny Logan

Johnny Logan
Background Information
Origin	Frankston, Australia
Birth date	13 May 1954
Death date	N/A
Age	71
Eurovision Song Contest - 1st Entry
Year	1980
Country	Ireland
Song	What's Another Year
Semi Position	--
Semi Points	--
Final Position	1st
Final Points	143
Eurovision Song Contest - 2nd Entry
Year	1987
Country	Ireland
Song	Hold Me Now
Semi Position	--
Semi Points	--
Final Position	1st
Final Points	172

Seán Patrick Michael Sherrard, known professionally as Johnny Logan, is an Australian-born Irish singer, songwriter and musician whose Eurovision achievements have been described as "legendary". He is the first artist to have won the contest twice as a performer.

He moved back to Ireland with his family at the age of 3 (he officially became an Irish citizen in 1987) and started songwriting at the age of 13. In 1978, he adopted his stage name Johnny Logan and released his first single. He first attempted to enter Eurovision in 1979 with a song entitled "Angie" and achieved third place in the Irish national final that year.

In 1980, he entered the Irish national final again with the Shay Healy song What's Another Year. It went on to represent Ireland at the Eurovision Song Contest 1980 in The Hague and won the competition, becoming a huge hit across the continent. However, several follow-up singles failed and all the momentum he had gained from the win was lost, citing his inexperience and poor management as the source of the problem.

Seven years later, he felt that what he had done in 1980 was left unfinished and decided to make another run at Eurovision, this time with the song Hold Me Now which he had writen and composed himself. He won the 1987 Irish national final in dominant fashion and went on to the Eurovision Song Contest 1987 in Brussels where he won again with 172 points including 8 sets of 12-points scores. "Hold Me Now" became a massive hit in Europe and a couple of follow-up singles did very well in the Irish charts, leading him to decide to focus his career in Europe.

At the Eurovision Song Contest 1992 in Malmö, he earned a third win as the composer for Linda Martin's winning entry Why Me? (he had also written Linda's runner-up entry Terminal 3 in 1984), and is one of an elite group of seven people to have composed 2 winning songs.

Because of his achievements, fans and media have called him "Mr. Eurovision" and remains a great ambassador for the contest. He currently lives in Ashbourne, Ireland with his family.

He appeared in the "Museum of Eurovision History" sketch at the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 in Copenhagen as an interactive display who sings Hold Me Now before coming to life and complaining to presenter Pilou Asbæk about his back hurting from having to sit still for so long.

In 2022, he participated in the second season of the Belgian version of The Masked Singer as "Edelhert" (Red Deer).

Trivia

• Johnny shares several interesting facts with fellow two-time winner Loreen:
  • Both times each won, the host venue for the following year was the same (RDS Simmonscourt Pavilion in 1981 and 1988, Malmö Arena in 2013 and 2024).
  • A close neighbor country won in the year following their first victory (United Kingdom in 1981, Denmark in 2013).
  • An artist representing Switzerland won in the year following their second victory (Celine Dion in 1988, Nemo in 2024).