Penny McLean

Penny McLean (born as Gertrude Wirschinger on November 4 1946 in Klagenfurt) is an Austrian singer and composer. She became famous as a member of Silver Covention and as a solo artist.

In 1965, she had under her real name Gertrude Wirschinger solo performances, from 1966 to 1969 she performed with her ​​husband as the duo Holger & Tjorven. The repertoire consisted from Niessen to international folk songs and songs composed by her husband.

In 1972, after her divorce, Gertrude released as Barbi Mint some not very successful singles. She then founded the band Penny Box, or Penny Explosion. Since then se uses her stage name Penny McLean . Producer Michael Kunze offered her a recording contract in 1973 and created the duo Barbra & Helmut.

Penny worked in Munich as a background singer and became in 1975 part of the group Silver Convention. The song Fly, Robin, Fly reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard charts (more than 1 million albums sold in the U.S.) the follow-up single Get Up and Boogie was also a huge success.

In 1975 Penny released the single Lady Bump; the song reached n0. 1 at the German charts. Penny's next single 1, 2, 3, 4 … Fire! was also a huge hit.

In 1977 Penny participated, as a member of Silver Convention, at the ESC wit the song Telegram which came 8th.

After the ESC the girls split-up.

Penny McLean released more singles like Dance, Bunny-Honey and Zwischen zwei Gefühlen (a German version of Torn between two lovers) and many more. Penny McLean almost represented Luxemburg at the ESC in 1979. Ralph Siegel and Bernd Meinunger wrote the song Tut-Ench-Amun for Penny and entered the song in the internal pre-selection in Luxemburg. An "expert" jury chose, the in my opinion rather dull song, J'Ai Déjà Vu Ça Dans Tes Yeux which was sung by Jeanne Manson.

After that Penny worked as an actress but in 1982 she released Wenn die Träume Flügel kriegen, a song which she wrote together with Dieter Bohlen.

Penny lives in Munich and writes books about numerology and esotericism.