en karl gerhard-cavalcade

in a way i already started with mr. tucho (and yes, heinrich heine): i will post some music that is somewhat related to my interested not only in music, but also its social context. i do agree with cristian vogel that context is very important – and also for me a lot of fun. what is special with the upcoming music is that it also serves as a, well, nearly pretext to have a look at the lifes of the different artists. this has not so much to do with trying to explain the work of the artist through his / her biography, it has more to do with my interest of how to live, how art and living, and yes, how art and politics might be connected. well, i don’t think i will be able to give you any answers, but the nice thing is that the music is good, too. and maybe it will slowly, after some more posts, even make sense. and hopefully it will seduce some of you to do some research of your own – or to share some of your knowledge with me…

since with mister tucho we are already in sweden, i propose you to listen into some songs by karl gerhard – seemingly the king of revue in the 20th century in sweden. there isn’t much information available on the net – a wikipedia entry in german, a wikipedia stub in english, and then there is this karl gerhard site. in swedish. which is also to a degree a drawback listening to his songs – i suspect understanding the lyrics would be more fun? especially since karl gerhard seemingly was an outspoken critic of the politics of his times – especially the 1930’s and 1940’s. maybe some swedish reader could give me some more details…

there is an interesting detail in his biography: in the early 1930’s he booked a young swedish singer for one of his revues by the name of zarah leander. yeah, it is all connected in strange ways….

but even not understanding swedish i do find it fun – hey, the sound of the swedish language is…eeerr, exotic to my ears, after all. if you would like an earfull yourself, i can propose you en karl gerhard-cavalcade, a recording from 1955, in a limited edition of 1000 (i have number 285), signed, nicely packaged, containing 2×10″ records with 19 songs. enjoy!

and thanks to youtube we can also enjoy karl gerhard’s really nice and slick visual style!