Dr. Jukka Ammondt of the University of Jyväskylä, Finland spent much of the 1990s translating classic 1950s rock songs into Latin and recording them. Sample tracks include: Nunc distrahor (All Shook Up), Quate, crepa, rota (Shake, Rattle and Roll), Non adamare no possum (Canít Help Falling In Love).
1997 Rocking in Latin. Cd "Rocking in Latin" contains various old rock and roll songs.
I. Quate, Crepa, Rota/ Shake, Rattle and Roll (Calhoun)
II. Mella Fella/Money Honey (Jesse Stone)
III. Ursus Taddeus/ Teddy Bear (K.Mann, B.love)
IV. Tu Quidem Recte Sensisti/ I'm Left, You're Right, She's gone (Stanley Kesler/William Taylor)
V. Amantes Ut Ego/A Fool Such As I (W. Trader/Billy Marvin/William Marvin)
VI. Nunc Distrahor/All Shook Up (O. Blackwell/E.Presley)
VII. Ai,Nunc Laudi Sis Claudia!/ Lawdy Miss Clawdy
VIII. Ne Saevias/Don't Be Cruel (O. Blackwell/E.Presley)
IX. Glaudi Calcei/ Blue Suede Shoes I (C. Perkins)
Dr Ammondt has this to say:
"Despite that my singer career is an intellectual joke, I have also a serious message to the people:` Don't stop, Find always new ways to break the borders- your own and the others` I think that's the most important thing in the creativity."
Dr Ammondt`s first album in Latin was "Tango Triste Finnicum" (1993). It contains the most beautiful Finnish tangos in Latin. The Finnish foreign minister delivered the album to the Vatican and both Dr Teivas Oksala, who translated the songs, and Dr Ammondt, were honoured by the Pope's medal in 1994.
(Photos and information with the kind permission of RAUNO HANNINEN)
"In 1994 I was planning a new album in Latin. "The Legend Lives Forever in Latin" was published in 1995 (Elvis' 60th birthday). It contains melodic Elvis songs like "Love me tender" and "Can't help falling in love." The CD single "Rock Latine" was published in December 1995. Album "Rocking in Latin" was published in 1997.
I discovered the existence of Dr Jukka Ammondt quite by chance on line the other day. By an amazing co-incidence in the paper, "The Daily Mail" (UK March 11, 2006) there is this headline:
The journalist, Ian Sparks, reports from Paris:......"even Elvis Presley would have been rocked by his latest impersonator. Dr Ammondt has been singing at this week`s European Festival of Latin and Greek in the village of Bechaerel, Brittany.
The academic has become a cult figure in Finland where he is also famed for commentating on an ice hockey in Latin.
He appeared last year as a guest singer at an Elvis tribute concert in Oxford, Mississippi, dressed in a kilt and blue suede sandals.
The local newspaper desribed his performance as "downright surreal."
In France Dr Ammondt opened his act with his own version of the Elvis favourite "Blue Suede Shoes."
Me humi proruas
Mi calces os
Aut infames nomen animos
Fac quidquid habes in animo
Sed, age, mel,nunc parce calceis
Ne calces mi glaucos calceos
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