(it was only a moment), Amiga 8 55 216, GDR, 1971
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)
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.
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
As always, you can also have a google search for Manfred Krug or Günther Fischer.
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