A1 Du bist heute wie neu (You seem like someone else today)
A2 Alles vorbei (All over)
A3 Verdammt (Damn it)
A4 Sie (You)

B1 Als der Opa von uns ging (When Grandpa passed away)
B2 Damals, weißt du noch (Back then, do you remember)
B3 Wenn der Urlaub kommt (When Holiday is coming)
B4 In einem Regen (In a rain)
B5 Das geht mir ans Herz (That’s moving my hard)

(play all tracks)

with Manfred Krug, Günther Fischer (he is the left one on the cover, btw), Christiane Wunder, the Gerd-Michaelis-Choir, Gerhard Pabst, Friedrich Schlegel, Heinz Becker, Joachim Graswurm, Hubert Katzenbeier, Freddy Lehmann, Horst Schmidt, Götz Geitner, Werner Schmidt, Helmut Wenzel, Klaus Smesny, the string-orchestra Otto-Karl Beck

Okay, so let’s have the last one and I can call it a night.

This is the fourth and final record of Manfred Krug and Günther Fischer, one year after the release of this record Manfred Krug left the GDR for good.

The music on this one is (ofcourse) great and again (as on most other Günther Fischer records) greatly due to one man : Wolfgang “Zicke” Schneider. He was the drummer in (as far as I know) every Günther-Fischer-Band and his drumstyle is really amazing and if you are into making music you probably even know him although you never heard his name because his drumming got sampled quite some time. More on that later.

As I wrote he was the drummer on most Günther Fischer records (for example also on both Uschi Brüning records (1, 2) I posted so far) and he got recognized for it up to a point that beat-diggers actually started collecting specifically his records. Which is probably the reason why he got his own Discogs-Page. And actually he his still playing in a band called “Jazzin the Blues”, you can try to make some sense of this automatic translation of his bio on their webpage.

And one final funny sidenote on all records: the labels say “lyrics written by Clemens Kerber” which is actually a pseudonym for Manfred Krug himself. As is “Isa Karfunkelstein”, the interviewer on the backside of this record.

But off to the tracks :

A1 Du bist heute wie neu (You seem like someone else today) is yet another bomb. Say what you want, but Günther Fischer got the concept of a great opener nailed. The song is about a guy not realizing that it’s the anniversary day with his wife, despite all her efforts. The buildup of the song is great, an amazing mix of disco, funk and pop. Also it is a great example of the progress Krug made, compare that to the first record, he actually got a tight rhythm and really starts to express his voice. And that amazing sax-solo by Günther Fischer in the middlepart just fits.

A4 Sie (You) is a song about him helping a woman with her lovesickness, and no, not that way. Great ballad, but really listen to the drumming, blows me away totally.

B3 Wenn der Urlaub kommt (When Holiday is coming) contains the drumloop which is for example part of the dnbmassive collection and a few commercial sample-cds possibly known to some people. The song is about the problem planning a holiday (with the special problems of east-germans regarding that matter) with the conclusion of just staying at home. The music is just a wild ride, again with a sax-solo (they were coming back in popular music in the late 70s).

B4 In einem Regen (In a rain) is a song about him and his wife which he first met in a rain long ago and about them still loving to go for a walk when it rains. Just listen to that guitar funking off at the side, the amazing drumming or his vocals. Great track aswell.

Check this records discogs-entry here.

And again the links to the CD-ReIssues: This record (together with the unposted third LP) is avaiable on CD at Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com, the other CD with the first and second LP here : Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com. Or try gemm for the vinyl.

This concludes the series of Manfred Krug as I don’t have any other vinyl from him. But I do have one other, last gem that will appear some time later.
But there is more Günther Fischer in my crates, although the next records will most probably be some hungarian funk or some czech or russian jazz.

A1 Wenn’s draußen grün wird (When it gets green outside)
A2 Laß mich nicht gehn (Don’t let me go)
A3 Komm und spiel mit mir (Come and play with me)
A4 Schau nicht hin (Don’t look there)

B1 Jeder Mann, der dich sah (Every man that saw you)
B2 Kalt und weiß (Cold and white)
B3 Sonntag (Sunday)
B4 Danke für den Abend (Thank you for the Evening)
B5 Baden gehn (Going for a swim)

(play all tracks)

with Manfred Krug, Günther Fischer, Reinhard Lakomy, Fred Baumert, Wolfgang “Eddie” Greiser, Wolfgang “Zicke” Schneider, Wolfgang “Büchse” Winkler, Matthias Schmidt, Hermann Wolfframm, Reinhard-Lakomy-Choir, String-Ensemble Otto-Karl Beck

Back with the second album of Manfred Krug. Nearly the same personell as on the first record with one big exception : Reinhard Lakomy on the organ.
Reinhard Lakomy was another great composer and singer who did stay in the GDR until it’s end. He started with doing pop music, later in the 80s he mainly did really great records for kids because he was fed up with pop, aswell as some amazing electronic records with a modular moog he bought from Tangerine Dream in the 80s and still owns (one of three worldwide). Records from him will pop up here eventually.
Anyway, as said both had a “professional” relationship in the beginning, later started becoming something like rivals (altough Lakomy states in his autobiography that he was simply not “interested in him”) and after Krug left the GDR Lakomy outright hated him and even went so far to avoid him during a meeting in the 90s (after Germany got united and they could have met again.)

But let’s put those things aside and let’s concentrate on the music, written again by Günther Fischer. The tracks :

A1 Wenn’s draußen grün wird (When it gets green outside) is simply the bomb. An intro which sounds like Love Unlimited Orchestras “Bring it on up” but was actually released three years earlier than “Music Maestro Please” instantly grabs your attention and paves the floor for a real smasher about the coming of spring and love. This is a track I play in about every single one of my sets, no matter what season it is.

B2 Kalt und weiß (Cold and white) a song about the search for a specific woman again (this record is mainly about women and seasons) that starts rather folky (?!) but picks up tempo after a while. Great again the conversation in the song, he meets the woman he dreams about finally in a shop where she is buying a dress with another guy for their wedding. Tough luck.

B3 Sonntag (Sunday) is a song about the first Sunday after the end of winter, just a great “easy-going” song about the time when winter is gone and spring finally arrives.

B5 Baden gehn (Going for a swim) is another great “easy-going” song about going to the beach and all the things you can do and see there… I guess you know what.

One more link for today, someone made a “Manfred Krug”-tributeprofile on myspace, so you can be friends with him. I am ofcourse.

Again the links to his two CD-ReIssues : Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com for the CD containing this and the first record from and you can get the second ReIssue of the third and fourth LP also on Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. Or try gemm for the vinyl.

As a note, I won’t post about his third record. The reason is not that it’s bad or not worth it, but rather that it’s filled with jazzed/funked and easy-listening covers of songs like “Greensleeves” or “Que sera”. It’s good aswell, but the idea of this page is to inform you about really original music which means I am not going to post any of the countless eastern records with cover-versions of western songs. So the fourth one from him will be next.

A1 Du sagtest leider nur “Gut Nacht” (You only said “good night”, unfortunately)
A2 Frag mich, warum (Ask me why)
A3 Der Tag beginnt (The day begins)
A4 Gestern war der Ball (Yesterday was a dance)
A5 Unser Abend war wunderbar (Our evening was great)
A6 Das war nur ein Moment (It was just a moment)

B1 Hör auf! (Stop it!)
B2 Du gehst (You leave)
B3 Nacht, ich träumte düster (At night, I had nightmares)
B4 Als ich rief nach dir (When I called for you)
B5 Ende der Platte (End of Record)

(play all tracks)

with Manfred Krug, Günther Fischer, Ulrich Gumpert, Fred Baumert, Günter Dobrowolsky, Wolfgang “Eddie” Greiser, Wolfgang “Zicke” Schneider, Gerhard Pabst, Wolfgang Domschke, Hans-Joachim Graswurm, Heinz Becker, Horst Schmidt, Götz Geithner, Hubert Katzenbeier, Fredi Lehmann, Michaelis Choir, String Ensemble Kurt Beck

Manfred Krug is a real icon in Germany. He actually grew up in Westgermany but his father moved to Eastgermany in 1949 when he was ten. Soon after becoming an adult he started acting in theatres and in the movies. Later he also started singing, mostly jazz and recorded quite a few records.
Due to alot of political troubles (which seem to be hard to judge from my informations, Reinhard Lakomy for example wrote a few harsh words about Krug and those troubles in his autobigraphy and I tend to believe him) he left the GDR in 1977 and went to Westgermany where he continued acting and recording music.
For some strange reason though his acting career excelled there (he played in a few very successful and long-seasoned TV-Series) while his musical career came to a grinding halt which actually leads to the funny situation that people from west-germany are very astonished if they hear the music he made back in the GDR, because to people from western germany he is mainly known as “the singing detective” from “Tatort”. The fact that he is a real icon is backed up by the simple fact that he actually got his own english wikipedia page.

But back to this record. It’s called “No.1″ and is actually the first of four he made with the help of Günther Fischer, but it’s not his real first, he had a few singles, tracks on compilations and even a full LP on Amiga before that one. The first LP called “Manfred Krug und die Modern Jazz Big Band” (1965) which is a recording of a live-gig and is amazingly raw, jazzy, great and extremely rare. I have seen that LP physically about three times in the past years, two times in shops for 80 and 120 Euro and one time a completely banged up version in a library.

But as I said, this is the first one with Günther Fischer and this is nearly all you need to know. It’s filled with fast funky tracks and slow jazzy ballads and there are the best instrumentalists of the GDR from that time on this one, it is just amazing.
On this first record the singing of Manfred Krug is not yet completey “tight”, but his sloppy style of hitting the notes and rhythm does actually add a lot of character to this record. It’s filled with songs about love and it is one of those rare records that you can listen trough from start to end.

About the tracks :

A1 Du sagtest leider nur “Gut Nacht” (You only said “good night”, unfortunately) is a story about him unsuccessfully trying to seduce a woman he brought home (yeah, he was a real playboy although his songs are quite romantic), most funny thing is a small reference to the cathedral in cologne (a city in western germany). Also all the small breaks troughout the song are very notable.

A3 Der Tag beginnt (The day begins) is a song about him falling in love with a girl he is seeing every morning on the train and him trying to gather the courage to talk to her. Especially noteworthy is the arrangement and the way this song builds up over time aswell the phaser-effect instead of a proper first chorus, sounds great.

A6 Das war nur ein Moment (It was just a moment) is a song about searching for love, starts very ballad-like, breaks down to a small amazing middlepart (wait for this, some downtempo-acts would make an entire tune out of this sample) and gets balladesk again. Very notably is also the doubling of his voice, he is basically singing his own background.

B3 Nacht, ich träumte düster (At night, I had nightmares) is a song about him losing his wife to a friend of his (and getting over it) and this song actually means alot to me because I experienced exactly the same thing some years ago. The whole arrangement of this song is amazing, a storyteller (him) is talking to the singer (him too), commenting on and asking about the lyrics. Also the song breaks down a few times, not unlike modern dancetracks. Best quote is the rather untranslatable “So mancher Freund ist nur ein Busenfreund”, meaning something like “sometimes a friend is just a friend of breasts” (though much more stylish in german).

And I do have some amazing news : This record (and the three follow-ups which will be posted later here) are actually avaiable worldwide as CD-ReIssues for an insanely low price (two records on one CD, used prices at under 3 Euro, Pounds and Dollar). The easiest way to get some of the best and original eastern funk. Check Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com for the CD containing this and the second record from Manfred Krug/Günther Fischer. If you don’t want to wait for the eastern-crates.com posts about the other records you can get the second ReIssue of the third and fourth LP also on Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. But ofcourse you can also hit gemm for the vinyl.

As always, you can also have a google search for Manfred Krug or Günther Fischer.

A-Side : Hochzeitsnacht (wedding night)
B-Side : Einer wie du (one like you)

(play all tracks)

Uschi Brüning with the Günther Fischer Orchestra

Let’s have some Funk, shall we ? It’s another Goodie from the Uschi Brüning/Günther Fischer-Dreamteam, a Single from 1975. The A-Side is a track about the wedding night of a young couple, though not sleazy but actually very romantic, B-Side is a song about the search for the “perfect man”. Have Fun. (Btw, two images only, because backside and the other label look exactly the same.)

Shopping Links :
The track “Hochzeitsnacht” is featured on the “Amiga a go go vol.1″, a compilation filled with great tracks from the Amiga-Archives that I recommend heartily and that is avaiable as CD worldwide, including ofcourse Amazon.de and with abit of luck also Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.
If you want to look for more music :
Uschi Brüning – Amazon.de | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com | gemm.com : here, here and here.
Günther Fischer – Amazon.de | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com | gemm.com : here, here and here.

Tracklist :

A1 – Ohne Lieder leben (living without songs)
A2 – An H.E. (for H.E. (H.E. being Hanns Eisler)) (snippet)
A3 – Vielleicht (maybe)

B1 – Einen Tag lang (for one day)
B2 – Gestern abend (yesterday evening) (snippet)
B3 – Er verließ mich vor dem Morgen (he left me before dawn)

(play all tracks)

Uschi Brüning (voc), Günther Fischer (ld, fl, ss, as, synth), Mario Peters (voc, el-p), Fred Baumert (g), Wolfgang “Eddie” Greiser (b, bg), Wolfgang “Zicke” Schneider (d), Streichergruppe Otto Karl Beck.

This is a live recording of a show done in east berlin and it rocks. I really love the music here, the full song for today is A1 – “Ohne Lieder leben” and its one of my own personal hymns, the lyrics basically point out that a life without music is impossible – exactly what I think. One a more funny sidenote, the one thing that really annoys on this record is the audience because whenever there is more than one second silence they begin to applaud, even if its only a small break in the song. Sometimes they start clapping three times troughout a song, I don’t know whats up with that. But atleast they dont clap along with the songs – thats something that happens on a few russian and czecheslovakian live-records and tends to go an my nerves very fast. Guess thats what they called “having a good time”.

However, as I said, this is one of my personal all-time favourate records.

Some biography stuff that I happen to know :

Uschi Brüning was one of the big female vocalists from the GDR. She could release some records and worked with alot of the major composers and players from the GDR. She is still producing records and touring Germany, I have to say that I am kind of frustrated because I missed every concert she gave in my hometown for the past 5 years, somehow it was never meant to be.

Günther Fischer was a multi-talent and workaholic. He toured all the time, wrote loads of music, worked with all big vocalists from the GDR, played major jazz-festivals, did soundtracks and so on and so forth. The best thing about him is that almost anything he did was somehow jazz-oriented. I have about 10 records from or featuring him and every single one is great in some way. I don’t know what he is up to at the moment, unfortunately.

Wolfgang “Zicke” Schneider (“Zicke” means goat) was one of the best drummers from the GDR. He is featured on alot of records and had a very sophisticated drumming style. He is the drummer on the (lesser known) “Wenn der Urlaub kommt”-Break (from a record from Manfred Krug, will appear here soon).

You can search the web for Uschi Brüning and Günther Fischer.

Shopping Links :
Uschi Brüning – Amazon.de | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com | gemm.com : here, here and here.
Günther Fischer – Amazon.de | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com | gemm.com : here, here and here.

Another Compilation. Since not every artist and band could have his own record the eastern labels made alot of Compilations. This way smaller or more unknown bands could have atleast one song featured on such a compilation. “Rhythmus” was annually released from 1971 to 1979 and its mostly funk/jazz influenced rock music, with german lyrics of course.

The Song I chose today is B4 – Pantha Rei+Veronika Fischer “Hier und nebenan” and it sounds like a T-Rex-coverversion, but I am not sure about that, I have never listened much to T-Rex to be honest. Maybe someone can shed some light on this.

As always, you can try to get this one on gemm.com.

Tracklist :

A1 – Borodin suite (Alexander Borodin) – 13:20
A2 – Bach ‘75 (Johann Sebastian Bach) – 6:25 (snippet)

B1 – Säbeltanz (Sabledance, Aram Chatschaturjan) – 6.05
B2 – Prelude cis-moll op3. Nr.2 (Sergej Rachmaninov) – 4:40 (snippet)
B3 – In der Halle des Bergkönigs (In the Hall of the Mountain King, Edvard Grieg) – 3:05
B4 – Türkischer Marsch (Turkish March, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) – 3:53

(play all tracks)

Rainer Uebel (synthesizer, hammond), Wolfgang Riedel (bassguitar), Peter Ludewig (drums), Gisbert Koreng (guitar), Bernd Aust (sax, flute)

Electra was one of the major rockbands in the GDR, playing jazz-influenced rockmusic mostly. They released several records with german lyrics and had quite some success. This is their second which I wasn’t aware of until I found it at a backyard sale. It’s filled with jazz-adaptions of classical pieces from Bach, Mozart, Rachmaninov aswell as my favourate piece of music : B3 – “In der Halle des Bergkönigs” (“In the hall of the mountain king” by Edvard Grieg). I have to say that “Peer Gynt” by Grieg really started my interest in music. Someone played it for me at the age of eight and I remember that I was totally stunned by the sound of all those instruments playing the same melody. Before that I never cared much about music, but this opened my eyes and ears. And 14 years later I discovered this version by Electra.
This record means really much to me.

I also found a video on youtube which features the Turkish March played by Electra at a concert in 1999, have fun. Unfortunately Embedding is disabled, so click here to watch it.

This record is avaiable as Cd-ReIssue (together with “Sixtinische Madonna”, another Electra Record) on Amazon.de, unfortunately not on Amazon.co.uk or .com. But you can try to look on gemm.com for this record or look on google for more information.

Karel Gott was the Megastar of the eastern countries, there is no doubt about that. He started in czecheslovakia but his music was not even stopped by the iron curtain and he is still recording songs and does shows all over the world, including the US and Japan. One example of his work is the titlesong for “Biene Maja” (no idea what the title was in other countries, just look below for a picture), a show which was broadcasted all over the world.

Altough he was a real pop-singer his work was always very fresh and ad-hoc. Also he did all he could to reach wider audiences, most of his songs are avaiable in versions of several languages, including czech, german, russian, english, italian and more.

This record is one of his works from the time when he really started to go international, the interesting thing is that although most of the songs on this record are in german language and it was aimed at the german market (and thats the west- aswell as the eastgerman market, to be precise) the whole record was recorded by Supraphon in Prague, Czecheslovakia and Amiga just licensed it for eastern germany.

The song I chose is a A5 – “Der allerletzte Liebestrank” and its my heads-up for all crate-diggers and samplers out there. Do you know the feeling when you want something really bad but just can’t reach it ? Its the same with this song, the drums are really fresh but there is not one moment in that song where they are really playing alone, there is always some other instrument or the voice over it. Things like these drive me crazy sometimes Also take note of the synth-sounds, that record is from ‘75 and it was mainstream-pop.

You can look for Karel Gott on www.gemm.com, there are really loads of records around, but be aware that he is really a “pop-singer”. His records from the seventies are mostly funky though.

And there is some more excellent information about Karel Gott on Maisies World.

This is one of those “technical demonstration” records about the effects possible with stereo recording, however it’s a little bit different from other records I heard where it’s basically one instrument being panned from left to right and back. Each song tells a story, and its quite a crazy record with lots of styles and little ideas about “stereo” in general. The song I chose is A7 – “All die schönen Tage”. The story of this song is about a small jazzband playing a song in a room while outside the window a big brass-band comes along playing the same song. Use headphones for this one or make sure to have a good stereoimage from your speakers, you will enjoy that.

As always, you can try your luck with this one on gemm.com but it seems to be quite rare. (When looking, be aware that the label is Amiga, not Decca).

A little lesson in history.
In the former communist countries all labels were led by the government or atleast some cultural division of it. Because of that and the fact that most records were sold out very fast economic reasons were a minor conisideration in the process of selecting artists to be published. Most of the time it was more about “cultural value”, even if today its hard to understand the “cultural value” of some records.

The point is now that due to that reason there is an enormous backstock of freejazz avaiable from eastern labels. Labels like Amiga Jazz, Polish Jazz and others published some seriously crazy stuff. To my understanding Freejazz in the western countries mostly happened on festivals and did not get taped or published on records, so the most part of this kind of music from the 60s to 90s is avaible only from those eastern labels, and I speak about records with 45 minutes of drum-solo or records based on the idea that a guitarist and a piano player talk about the music they want to do beforehand, go to seperate rooms and record their music simultaniously but without being able to hear what the other one is playing.

This record is one good example. Hannes Zerbe was a very active east german freejazzer (piano, brass, composer) with quite a few records on Amiga Jazz, this is one of the most interesting.

He formed a brass-section consisting of people having no knowledge about jazz at all (mainly they came from symphonic orchestras), told them a little about what was going to happen and then basically forced them to improvise while he was playing the piano and some other jazz-musician played drums.

The track I chose is B1 – “Metamorphosen II”, that one is a good overview about the things going on on this record.

Got that from my local library.

As always, you can try to get this on gemm.com. Or you can try to look for records from Amiga Jazz or Polish Jazz. Its not all freejazz though.