Sorry guys & dolls,

the blog in it's current form is over. The server that hosted the files had an issue with the blog and deleted ALL my music files. No warning, no nothing. Just when I opened there site today I got a cryptic message: "We know more about outerspace, than we know about the oceans of the world".
I will try to find other options, any tips?

Auf Wiedersehen,
it's been swell...

Inge Brück
A: O John (The House Of The Rising Sun)
B: Miss Molly Mill
TWR 14 649 AT (1970)

OK, let's start with some basic facts about Inge Brück, born in 1936 she only ever graced the german hitparade once at the very beginning of her career in 1957, with a cover version of Jim Lowe's "Green Door". She represented Germany at the Eurovision song contest in 1967 with "Anouschka" and ended up in 8th place (see her performance in the clip below). In 1970 she starred in the TV series Miss Molly Mill as a crime solving housekeeper. Later in the decade she turned to Christianity and released religious songs with tedious titles like "Sag' Ja zu Jesus" (Say Yes To Jesus). And from what I read she is still busy saving souls from purgatory today, bless her.
So what's she doing here, I hear you ask.
Well first of all Fräulein Brück has quite good singing voice, in a Petula Clark sort of way.
Secondly, she released this rather lovely cover of "The House Of The Rising Sun" in 1970. It doesn't really rock like The Animals version and of course all references to a brothel (which is what the song is about) have been removed by the prim and proper Miss Brück, but it has it's own charme and works quite well.

Inge Brück - O John (House Of The Rising Sun),1970

France Gall
A: Wir sind keine Engel (Nous ne sommes pas des anges)
B: Ich träume jede Nacht (Mon bateau de nuit)
Philips 373 696 BF (1966)

If you read this blog I won't have tell you about France Gall, this mademoiselle is the personification of everything yé-yé. What you might not know is that France had  very succesful german Schlager career in the late 60s /early 70s, well documented on several CD releases. However, all of these CDs licensed only material from her Decca years, not her earlier two singles for Philips or her later two releases on the BASF label. Quite a shame, because the two Philips singles rank amongst her best. Her very first german language record in 1965 was a version of the Eurovison winner "Poupée de cire, poupée de son". A year later she came out with this track "Wir sind keine Engel", a translation of "Nous ne sommes pas des anges", like poupée a gem written by mastermind Serge Gainsbourg. France Gall also introduced a whole new type of female star to Germany: her unabashed girlie-ness was a complete novetly at the time. She was the voice and face of the teenager phenomenon. After a string of hits her appeal began to wane in the mid 70s and she concentrated her career back to her home country, only to re-invent herself in late 80s with pop hits like "Ella elle l'a", which stayed for four weeks on top of the german charts.

France Gall - Wir sind keine Engel (1966)

Caterina Valente
A: Kismet
B: Abschiedsrosen
Decca 19 761 (1967)

There no need to introduce Caterina Valente, a truely international superstar. And while she is an excellent jazz and bossa nova vocalist, she gave her german audience what it wanted: a series of rather sentimental Schlager records, starting in the mid 50s. Her biggest hit was the ultra-cheesy "Steig in das Traumboot der Liebe" (Step into the dreamboat of love) in 1956, a song so saccharine it hurts your teeth. From than on she was a constant guest in the german charts, selling records like bratwurst. But by 1967 her popularity began to dwindle, the beat wave had taken over and she was considered old fashioned. Time for a new sound: her LP SCHLAGER LIEDER & CHANSONS finds Caterina going pop and the star of the show is exotic "Kismet", a song so cool it will hurt your teeth. Surprisingly feminist lyrics: "Do men know what women dream of? Should we ask them? Ah, forget it!". Sadly this single was the end of Caterina's chart domination. It peaked at number 30 and after that it would take over 10 years before she had another hit in Germany. Kismet? Kudos to Mo Kidding for putting me on this track. Below a clip of Caterina from a 1968 live performance.

Caterina Valente - Kismet (1967)

Karin Elling
A: Er liebt mich nicht mehr
B: Ich rühr ein Hexensüppchen an (Witches Brew)
CBS 2320 (1968)

I usually try to select singles for the blog for which I have some background information. This time I have to abandon this rule, I can't tell you anything about Karin Elling, it seems that she never made another record apart from this release. What I can tell you is that "Ich rühr ein Hexensüppchen an" is a german version of "Witches Brew", a song originally performed by the infamous singing madam Janie Jones (yes, madam as in 'runs a brothel'). Janie famously arrived to a movie premier in a topless dress and this was in the 60s! The lady has guts, I have to give her that. Her notoriety was cemented by The Clash, who wrote a song about her ("Janie Jones" 1977, recently covered by Pete Doherty's Babyshambles)
Karin (probably) doesn't have such a pedigree, but her attempt at the song is entirely credible, in fact I prefer it to the original. The off-key string motiv from the Janie Jones version is replaced by some kind of early synth, which makes it even more catchy and highly danceable. In fact it's so irritatingly catchy that you will probaly hum it for days, once it's stuck in your head, you've been warned!
Of course this gem is hidden on the b-side of a rather dull a-side, but to be fair: "Hexensüppchen" was to outlandish for the conservative german audience to make it into the charts. Check the clip below for the Janie Jones original.

Karin Elling - Ich rühr ein Hexensüppchen an (1968)

Joy and The Hit Kids
A: Zweisamkeit (The Happening)
B: Das Glück dieser Welt
Decca D 19 878 (1967)

Joy Fleming (whose real name slightly less glamorous: Erna Raad!) is one of the best soul and blues voices in the german music scene. She still performs today and even though she is known, she sadly never had that really big breakthrough. This is partly because she doesn't fit into neither the Schlager category nor in the alternative rock scene and also, at times she looked...well...a bit odd, but let's not go into that.
These are her first 2 recordings from 1967, when she was in a formation called Joy & the Hit Kids. They later evolved into Joy Unlimited and in the mid 70s she lost her backing band altogether. Too hard to decide which is the better track here, so I give you both. The a-side is a cover of the Supremes' "The Happening", one of the few early Supremes hits that was NOT written by Holland-Dozier-Holland. The b-side is the original song "Das Glück dieser Welt", a soulful groover of the best sort. After this release Joy and her Hit Kids subsequent singles were all sung in english and even "Das Glück ..." was translated into "What Can I Do Without You" for a TV program. You can see clip of this wonderful performance here. Embedding it here was not allowed, so instead see a groovy clip of the Supremes doing the original "Happening". Oh yes, I'm not the first to post this in a blog (hello Eff!), but who can get enough of this?

Joy and The Hit Kids - Zweisamkeit

Joy and The Hit Kids - Das Glück dieser Welt

Edit:
just found another clip of Joy and her Kids: enjoy!

A: Sleepy Sweetheart
B: Wie soll ich denn glücklich sein
Polydor 52 521 (1965)

Norma is originally a lassie from Edinburgh, however her recording career began 1965 in Germany with "Sleepy Sweetheart", a pleasant little ditty that borrows heavily from those early Supremes songs like "Baby Love" or "Where Did Our Love Go". It should be said that the lady on the picture sleeve is not Norma, but a nameless model that was used many Polydor sleeves at the time. How humiliating! After her single failed to set Germany on fire, Norma headed for Italy where she founded the all female band "The Honeybeats" with four local girls. They made one more German language record before they continued in Italian. Check the clip below for these groovy chicks! (sorry for the bad quality). After the Honeybeats disbanded Norma continued to perform and later released a fairly credible blues album and some disco records.

Norma Green - Sleepy Sweetheart (1965)

Marion
A: I Think I Said Yes
B: I Go To Sleep
Hansa 19 770 AT (1967)

Another first in the blog: a german doll singing english! Marion Maerz is arguably the most saluted german doll around. Reportedly even Paul McCartney noticed her talent. She cleverly stayed away from those typical Schlager novelty tunes and delivered honest, slightly melancholy tracks. Her producer Christian Bruhn writes in his book that he had one winning formula for Marion that he exercised to perfection: "Keep it simple, keep sexy, keep it sad".
Her breakthrough hit became the iconic "Er ist wieder da", that was written by Bruhn at the same time as Drafi Deutscher's "Marmor, Stein und Eisen bricht". If you listen closley you will recognize the same patteren of slow and faster parts in both tunes.
Anyway, Marion's german tracks are expertly compiled on her Bear Family CD "Er ist wieder da". However the family made one painful omission: her wonderful english language single "I Go To Sleep", a track written by Ray Davies from The Kinks and previously recorded by Peggy Lee and Cher (and shortly after by brit girl Samantha Jones), but no one can do sexy/sad like Marion and her version towers over all others. She became one of the few german artists to appear on the german Beatclub TV show, see a short clip of performance below. Now get a handkerchief ready and wallow in her delicate pain...

Marion - I Go To Sleep (1967)

Sandie Shaw
A: Und sowas nennst Du nun Liebe (I Don't Need That Kind Of Lovin')
B: Mir ist alles klar (Message Understood)
Pye DV 14475 , 1967

Sandie Shaw was long overdue to make an appearance here. In the 60s this quintessential Beat Girl recorded 29 (!) songs in German and she mastered the language surprisingly well. But her appeal goes beyond her musical achievements, Sandie was the ultimate style icon of the hip and young. It's only fair to say that not one german-born Beat Mädchen could vaguely match her über-coolness. "Und sowas nennst Du nun Liebe" is a translation of "I Don't Need That Kind Of Lovin'" and IMHO the Geman version is even better than the original. It just rocks and the lyrics fit perfectly. Both the original and the translation failed to chart in the Fatherland, in spite of Pye Records' heavy promotion for the single. Sandie performed the english version in the popular Beat Club TV show, Germany's major program for pop music. Check the clip below for this performance. However the Germans cemented their reputation for bad taste when they made Sandie next single, the godawful Eurovision winner "Puppet On A String" a number one and one of the best-selling singles of 1967. Sandie reportedly hated the song, rightfully so.
Oh yes, in case you were wondering why I didn't post for so long. To my utter horror my picture account was hacked and ALL pictures and graphics in the blog were lost. I was briefly considering deleting the whole blog, but in end I started slowly replacing the pictures in the more recent posts. Sorry, but I can't be arsed to go back further and replace everything. Too much work. The older download links should still work though.
I'm a bit disappointed at the lack of feedback here. You download the tracks here by hundreds. I'd like to hear from you.

Sandie Shaw - Und sowas nennst Du nun Liebe (1967)