Gone Fishin!

Have a good time, greetings!

Velvet Underground - A Young Person´s Guide To

"A Young Person´s Guide To Velvet Underground" is a collection of various rare cuts, pre-Velvet-Underground tracks, studio demos and Max's live tracks. It comes with an 8-pages photo book and covers the early years of VU.

The included song "Waves" was the working title for "Ocean".

Tracks:
1. Inside Of Your Heart (2:26)
2. White Light/White Heat (2:48)
3. Rock'n Roll (5:21)
4. Waves (5:23)
5. I've Got A Tiger In My Tank (2:12)
6. You're Driving Me Insane (2:22)
7. Index (4:29)
8. VU Noise (1:49)
9. Sweet Jane (4:51)
10. I'm Set Free (5:12)
11. You Better Walk It, As You Talk It (1:59)
12. Lonesome Cowboy Bill (3:48)
13. Sneaky Pete (2:10)
14. I'm Waiting For My Man (4:34)

Sources:
1, 3, 4 : rough mix acetate demos / 2 : mono mix, 1967 / 5, 6, 13 : pre-VU tracks / 7 : Andy Warhol's Index book flexi / 8 : The East Village Other LP / 9 : Max's Kansas City, August 23, 1970 / 10, 12, 14 : Max's Kansas City, July 26, 1970 / 11 : Max's Kansas City, rehearsals, Summer 1970.

Velvet Underground - A Young Person´s Guide To
(320 kbps, cover art included)

VA - Stimmen des 20. Jahrhunderts - 1933 - Der Weg in die Katastrophe

It happened 74 years ago: The attempt on Hitler’s life on 20 July 1944, was the seventeenth known occasion that someone had tried to kill the NS-dictator Adolf Hitler.

Unlike other attempts however this, the 20 July Bomb Plot, was the most intricate, and involved plans for a new Germany following the successful accomplishment of the mission.

"On this day in 1944, Hitler cheats death as a bomb planted in a briefcase goes off, but fails to kill him.

High German officials had made up their minds that Hitler must die. He was leading Germany in a suicidal war on two fronts, and assassination was the only way to stop him. A coup d'etat would follow, and a new government in Berlin would save Germany from complete destruction at the hands of the Allies. That was the plan. This was the reality: Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, chief of the army reserve, had been given the task of planting a bomb during a conference that was to be held at Berchtesgaden, but was later moved to Hitler's "Wolf's Lair", a command post at Rastenburg, Prussia. Stauffenberg planted the explosive in a briefcase, which he placed under a table, then left quickly. Hitler was studying a map of the Eastern front as Colonel Heinz Brandt, trying to get a better look at the map, moved the briefcase out of place, farther away from where the Fuhrer was standing. At 12:42 p.m. the bomb went off. When the smoke cleared, Hitler was wounded, charred, and even suffered the temporary paralysis of one arm - but he was very much alive. (He was even well enough to keep an appointment with Benito Mussolini that very afternoon. He gave Il Duce a tour of the bomb site.) Four others present died from their wounds.

As the bomb went off, Stauffenberg was making his way to Berlin to carry out Operation Valkyrie, the overthrow of the central government. In Berlin, he and co-conspirator General Olbricht arrested the commander of the reserve army, General Fromm, and began issuing orders for the commandeering of various government buildings. And then the news came through from Herman Goering - Hitler was alive. Fromm, released from custody under the assumption he would nevertheless join the effort to throw Hitler out of office, turned on the conspirators. Stauffenberg and Olbricht were shot that same day. Once Hitler figured out the extent of the conspiracy (it reached all the way to occupied French), he began the systematic liquidation of his enemies. More than 7,000 Germans would be arrested (including evangelical pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer), and up to 5,000 would wind up dead—either executed or as suicides. Hitler, Himmler, and Goering took an even firmer grip on Germany and its war machine. Hitler became convinced that fate had spared him—"I regard this as a confirmation of the task imposed upon me by Providence"—and that "nothing is going to happen to me... [T]he great cause which I serve will be brought through its present perils and...everything can be brought to a good end." - http://www.history.com

Remembering this event, we feature a co-production of the "Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin" and the "Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv" with audio documents from the year 1933: The year Adolf Hitler became dictator of Nazi Germany which lead to the catastrophe of the Second World War and the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a deliberate and systematic extermination of European Jews during World War II. As the Allied Powers fought Nazi Germany's domination of Europe, Adolf Hitler's henchmen were carrying out a mass annihilation of the Jews in Europe at their numerous concentration camps. The total number of Jews murdered during this genocide has been estimated to be nearly 6 million. Besides European Jews, there were many other groups targeted for destruction. They included the handicapped, mentally ill, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals and political dissidents.



Tracklist:

Tracknummer	Aufnahmedatum	Titel	Dauer
01	15.01.1933	Ansprache von Reichskanzler Kurt von Schleicher auf einer Kundgebung des Deutschen Reichskriegerbundes	3'17"
02	30.01.1933	Reportage vom Fackelzug der SA- und der Stahlhelmformationen vor der Berliner Reichskanzlei	3'18"
03	04.03.1933	Amtseinführung des amerikanischen Präsideten Franklin D. Roosevelt	2'34"
04	21.03.1933	Reportage vom "Tag der Nation" in Potsdam	4'50"
	23.03.1933	Reichstagssitzung: Verabschiedung des "Ermächtigungsgesetzes"
05		Reichstagspräsident Hermann Göring	1'51"
06		Adolf Hitler: Regierungserklärung	3'16"
07		Otto Wels (SPD-Fraktionsvorsitzender)	2'38"
08		Adolf Hitler: Erwiderung auf die Rede von Otto Wels	3'40"
09	01.04.1933	Aufruf zum Boykott jüdischer Geschäfte: Sprechchöre; Joesph Goebbels (Reichspropagandaminister)	1'04"
10	05.04.1933	Reportage von einer Polizeiaktion im Berliner Scheunenviertel	3'52"
11	10.05.1933	Reportage von der Bücherverbrennung auf dem Berliner Opernplatz	2'15"
12	1933	Werbung für Kienzle-Uhren: "Deutsch ist die Uhr, deutsch ist der Klang"	3'50"
13	11.09.1933	Kundgebung der Vaterländischen Front in Wien mit Bundeskanzler Engelbert Dollfuß	3'22"
14	20.09.1933	Rundfunkansprache von Ernst Röhm, Stabschef der SA	1'06"
15	30.09.1933	Reportage aus dem Konzentrationslager Oranienburg (bei Berlin)	4'10"
16	30.09.1933	Ansprache von Reichsjustizkommisar Hans Frank in Leipzig auf einer Tagung des Nationalsozialistischen Juristenbundes	3'05"
17	11.11 1933	Aufruf von Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg zur Volksabstimmung am 12. November 1933	1'36"
18	15.11.1933	Ansprache von Reichspropagandaminster Joseph Goebbels anlässlich der Eröffnung der Reichskulturkammer in der Berliner Philharmonie	3'43"
19	16.11.1933	Kommentar von Radio Wien zur Volksabstimmung in Deutschland am 12. November 1933	1'42"
20	19.11.1933	Ansprache von Theodor Adrian von Renteln, Präsident des DIHT, auf einer Tagung des Reichsstandes des deutschen Handels in Braunschweig	2'32"
21	12.12.1933	Reportage von der Eröffnung des Reichstages in der Berliner Krolloper	1'58"
22	16.12.1933	Leipziger Reichstagsbrandprozess: Schlusswort des Angeklagten Georgi Dimitroff (mit Einsprüchen von Senatspräsident Wilhelm Bünger)	5'21"
23	20.12.1933	Ansprache von Reichssendeleiter Eugen Hadamovsky anlässlich der Eröffnung der drei Großsender Berlin, München und Stuttgart	2'12"
24	1933	"Ein Reich ist uns entstanden". Ein Hörbild von Kurt Klawitter	3'25"

VA - Stimmen des 20. Jahrhunderts - 1933 - Der Weg in die Katastrophe
(256 kbps, front cover included)

The More Extended Versions & Cpt. Kirk & - Round About Wyatt

The band "Extended Versions" was a duo of tall, scary, grimy Austrian leftists (Christof Kurzmann and Helmut Heiland) who made a raucous noise with scratchy guitar, fuzz bass, soprano sax, flute and an overtaxed drum machine. The were influenced by "Suicide" and "The Velvet Underground", and sounded like a less-patient "39 Clocks".

As "The More Extended Versions" they released a great cooperation CD with "Cpt. Kirk &.", a band from Hamburg. It was a Robert Wyatt tribute, but it also had Cypress Hill and Epic Soundtracks covers and other stuff which they associated with Wyatt. It was one of those both political and cultural informed projects back in the 90ies of the last century, when leftist activists and cultural protagonists tried to find a mutual way in opposition to the growing nationalism and racism in Germany. Loved this album in those days and listening to it now is still a pleasure. A worthy and intelligent supplement to the discography of Robert Wyatt.

The More Extended Versions & Cpt. Kirk &. - Round About Wyatt
(192 kbps, front cover included)

The More Extended Versions - Dedicated To You, But You Weren´t Listening (The Music Of Robert Wyatt)

.

Here´s the other Robert Wyatt related release by the very astute Austrian group "The More Extended Versions", published in 1992.

Tracklist:

01 Dedicated To You But You Weren´t Listening / Why Are We Sleeping
02 Little Red Riding Hood Hits The Road
03 Alifib
04 Stalin Wasn´t Stalling
05 The Age Of Self
06 The British Road
07 Chairman Mao
08 Gharbzadegi
09 Justice
10 Dondestan
11 Left On Man

The More Extended Versions - Dedicated To You, But You Weren´t Listening
(192 kbps, front cover included)

Chicago - The Blues - Today! Vol. 2

Otis Rush, Jimmy Cotton, and Homesick James Williamson are all from Mississippi, and each of them has found a place for himself in Chicago through his music, if you’re good, with a style of your own, there’s a Chicago blues business waiting to pick you up. Otis Rush is one of the best of the young Chicago bluesmen. He works steadily, seven nights a week at a lounge on the West Side. At the club, Curley’s, there isn’t much of a crowd on week nights; so he lets somebody from the neighborhood work the first set and he sits at a side table with two or three friends. It’s dark in the club and the band works on a high bandstand under dim red fluorescent lights. The crowd at Curley’s is younger, and they’ve been away from the blues for a while; so Otis can reach out into the area where the blues and jazz intermingle. “I was born in Philadelphia, Mississippi, but I left when I was fifteen...” He plays left-handed, looking down at his fingers on a solo. “It was the winter when I first came up and it was cold, but I had a sister living here; so I stayed with her.” He’s only 31 and he looks younger. “As a kid I just liked the looks of the guitar, but I didn’t play. I started after I got up here and got a little older and heard Muddy and Buddy Guy and T-Bone Walker...” Otis has always been an exciting singer, and he has matured into a brilliant, inventive guitar player. The rest of the band is even younger, and they move from the blues of Otis’ “I Can’t Quit You Baby” to the hard edged blues-jazz of “Rock” with an easy familiarity—except for the alto man, “Sax” Crowder, a thin, quiet musician from the 1939 Earl Hines Band. His jazz has always been the blues, and his blues style has always been jazz. This is the new, young, “tough,” Chicago blues—”tough” the South Side term for the newest, the most exciting.

With Jimmy Cotton the sound is closer to the country style. He’s been Muddy Waters harp man since 1957, and Muddy doesn’t stray far from the first band sound he developed in the mid-1940’s. At Pepper’s Lounge, where the band usually works when it’s in town, you can get down close to the bandstand and hear Jimmy sing. Muddy usually sits at one of the tables and lets Jimmy or Otis Spann do most of the playing. The Chicago harmonica—”harp”—style is one of the distinctive sounds of the Chicago blues, the instrument played differently than it was in the South. Jimmy, like Junior Wells and Little Walter Jacobs and Big Walter Horton, holds it against a cheap amplifier mike, cupping both the microphone and the harp in his hands. He’s in his early 30’s, and despite ten or so years away from the South there’s still some of the easy country enthusiasm in his exuberant singing—and even some of the country concerns in his blues about the outskirts of Helena, Arkansas, about bad cotton crops, and about new cars and ungrateful women.
Homesick James has been up from Mississippi longer, since 1947, but he has as much of the down home sound as Jimmy. His style comes partly from his cousin, Elmore James—Homesick worked with him on and off before Elmore’s death in the mid 1950’s—and partly from his own country background. The sound is as distinctive to Chicago as Jimmy’s harp. It’s the electrified “slide” style that Muddy and Elmore developed out of the Mississippi “bottleneck” playing. You put a metal bearing ring or a piece of metal pipe on the little finger of your left hand and you can work the strings to get almost any kind of sound. Homesick works at most of the South Side clubs, but he’s had a steady factory job ever since he got to Chicago; so he usually plays only on Friday and Saturday in one of the small clubs. The sound of the blues has changed on the South Side, but there’s still some of the sound of Mississippi music around the corner in a neighborhood bar, or in a lounge near the El tracks—the loneliness and the insecurity of the country music intensified, driven into a new creative excitement, in the slums of the northern city.
Chicago - The Blues - Today! Vol. 2
(192 kbps, ca. 62 MB)


Notes from the original release of "Chicago/The Blues/Today Vol. 2":

“Sweet Home Chicago”...up from Meridian, Mississippi, up from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, from Jackson, from Selma, Memphis, Helena, Brownsville, Bessemer, Natchez...to a rooming house on S. Indiana, to a run down hotel on West Roosevelt, to a folding bed in a sister’s apartment on S. Lake Park. If you’re colored it’s better in Chicago than it is in Mississippi—unless you’re aggressive or talented or lucky not much better, but enough so that you get on the Greyhound bus in Jackson or Tupelo with some food in a shoe box and your clothes in a paper suitcase, or you sit up for a gritty night in a railroad coach, or you get a ride with somebody who’s got a battered car. Jobs? There aren’t many, and what there are don’t offer much more than you could have gotten back in the South. Someplace to stay? The rooms are small and dirty and you live poor and cramped until you can get a steady job and move into something better.

Sometimes—if you’ve come up from a cotton farm, or from a slow back country town—everything seems changed. the buildings along Indiana or Prairie in the south ‘30s, or on the streets going east to the lake, have a heavy, imposing look—stone and brick, with names carved into the top stone arch, “Doris,” “Paloma,” “Linda,” “Windermere,” but the stones are black with soot and the names are grimy and weathered. In the entrance hallways a broken light bulb dangles from the ceiling, and the names are scrawled on the walls beside the battered mail boxes. Beside most of the names a note like, “Third floor rear ring 2 times.” There isn’t enough money to rent a whole apartment; so a five room apartment becomes four rooms for four families with a kitchen for everybody to share. Along the inside hallways the doors have been wearily dragged shut with wires and hooks and cheap padlocks, but on most of them are old scratches and broken hasps, the marks of thieves who hang around in the dark hallways and back entrances of the buildings. But some things haven’t changed as much. Climbing up the stairs to somebody’s apartment you can hear the voices from the rooms around you. Children crying, women calling to each other, somebody singing, an abrupt argument... and you can hear music. Somebody’s always playing a radio or a phonograph and most of the time the music has the raw, insistent sound of the Chicago blues.

The blues is still the same emotional expression that it is in Mississippi, but in Chicago, like a lot of other things, the blues has changed. It isn’t only that the sound is different, that the clubs have to have three or four piece bands instead of one or two men with guitars, that the instruments have all been electrified to be heard over the noise of the crowded barrooms where the men work. The old style was less determined, less relentless, it was concerned with country towns and country roads and country cabins. It was “country” blues. If you grew up out along one of the rivers of the delta, or back on a one lane dirt road, there was a least the sun and the afternoon wind and the streams to fish in and the fall mornings when you could hunt in overgrown fields; so the music was gentler, sometimes almost warm and easy in its worries with love and loneliness. But there isn’t much sun in the South Side streets, and the apartment houses are overcrowded, and the winters are bitter and the spring comes late; so the music is harder, with some of the city’s mean ferocity.

Lin Jaldati - Lin Jaldati singt (Eterna, 1966)

Jewish Music in Post-War Germany, Part 2

Lin Jaldati: Communist First, Jewish Second

The first purveyors of Yiddish song in post-war Germany were Jews, but most of them did not actually speak Yiddish natively; they had acquired it some time later. From the very beginning, German interest in Judaism involved transforming real living assimilated Jews into a more exotic Eastern European variant.

Lin Jaldati, a Dutch Jew, was probably the most famous of these Yiddish students. Bron Rebekka Brilleslijper in 1921 in Amsterdam to a Sephardic family, Jaldati was taught Yiddish by a cantor shortly before the war. In 1944 she was deported to Auschwitz; as a Communist and aJew, she had two strikes agaisnt her. But she survived and rejoined the Communist Party soon after being freed. In 1952 she immigrated to East Germany, attracted by the opportunity to help the new socialist state. She took along her songs. In 1964 seh released her first album; by 1966, she had released her first book, a collection of Yiddish songs called Es brennt, Brüder, es brennt. In the introduction she wrote a short history of the Jews in Europe since the Middle Ages; she also noted their early involvement in Communist agitation.

Jaldati´s Jewish identification was secondary to her Communist affiliation, which would have appealed to German audiences who could congratulate themselves on their tolerance without having to feel threatend by someone who indentified above all as Jewish. Jaldati´s daughter, Jalda Rebling, explained that her mother "always said, that I´m Jewish is a fact: I´m not ashamed of it, and I´m also not particularly proud of it, that´s just the way it is".

Lin Jaldati was interned in Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen with Anne Frank and her familiy, and was actually the person who told Otto Frank that his daughters had died in the concentration camps. In the 1980s, Jaldati toured the world with a programme taht commemorated what would have been Frank´s 50th birthday.


Tracklist:

Ist das alles schon wieder vergessen
An meine Landsleute
Lied einer deutschen Mutter
Nichts oder alles
Die Ballade vom Wasserrad
Das Lied der Kupplerin
Song von den träumen
Spanisches Wiegenlied
Lied der Mausmutter
Auf Wiedersehn
Hej zigelech
Motele
Dort balm breg fun weldl
A jiddische mame
Berjoskele
Rabojssaj
Der balagole un sajn ferdl
Es brent
Amol is gewen a jidele
Jüdisches Partisanenlied

Voice: Lin Jaldati
Piano: Eberhard Rebling

Lin Jaldati - Lin Jaldati singt (Eterna, 1966)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Liederjan - Volksmusik aus der heilen Welt (1979)

Liederjan is a north-German folk group. The group originated as "Tramps & Hawkers", which played Irish traditional music in the early 1970s. They gradually started playing German folk-music and in 1975 formed the group Liederjan.

The principal members of the group were Anselm Noffke (died 2003), Jörg Ermisch und Jochen Wiegandt. Others who played with Liederjan were Rainer Prüss, Edzard Wagenaar, Wolfgang Rieck, Jürgen Leo, Klaus Irmscher and currently Hanne Balzer and Michael Lempelius.

Tracklist:

A1	Schlemmerlied
A2	Der Distelbaum
A3	Bauer Und Kalb
A4	Der Lumpensammler
A5	Schnitter Tod
B1	Tripp-Trapp
B2	Auf Dem Tanzboden
B3	Auswandererlied
B4	Michels Abendlied
B5	Stempellied
B6	Dr. Severing

Liederjan - Volksmusik aus der heilen Welt (1979)
(192 kbps, small cover included)

Erwin Geschonneck - "Widerstand und Anpassung - Überlebensstrategie" (Originaltonfeature by Thomas Heise)

Erwin Geschonneck, a German actor who spent years in Nazi concentration camps for his communist sympathies and went on to star in scores of East German films, died on March, 13, 2008 in Berlin at the age of 101.

Geschonneck's "engaging artistic and political efforts were recognized with the highest international acclaim for decades," the german Academy of Arts said in a statement. It said that the biography of Geschonnek, who died at his Berlin apartment, "is a window into a century of German history."

Geschonneck, the son of a cobbler, was born in East Prussia on Dec. 27, 1906 and grew up in Berlin. He joined the Communist party in 1919, and spent years with theater groups that performed agitprop, with workers' choirs and in a young people's theater. He made his big-screen debut in 1931 as an extra in Slatan Dudows' "Kuhle Wampe" - a film about unemployment in the Weimar Republic written by famed playwright and director Bertolt Brecht.

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Geschonneck went into exile in the Soviet Union, settling in Odessa - where he worked in a German-language collective theater until he was expelled in 1938. He ended up in Prague, where he was arrested by the SS in 1939 after the Nazis took over, then thrown into the Sachsenhausen concentration camp outside Berlin.
During the war, he was also imprisoned in the Dachau and Neuengamme camps. Just days before the end of the war, he was being transported aboard the Cap Arcona - a prewar luxury liner that had been commandeered by the German navy - along with some 4,000 other concentration camp inmates when it was sunk by the Royal Air Force in the Baltic.
Many of those who were not killed in the attack were gunned down by the SS as they tried to swim ashore.
Geschonneck was one of 350 who survived, and his story would be later made into the 1982 East German television film "Der Mann von der Cap Arcona" - "The Man of the Cap Arcona" - in which he also acted.

After the war, Geschonneck resumed acting in 1946 in Hamburg in the theater, and also took on several supporting film roles.
In 1949, he moved to East Berlin and joined Brecht's Berliner Ensemble theater troupe, where he gained national attention starring as "Matti" in an acclaimed production of "Mr. Puntila and his Man Matti."

He acted in his first film for DEFA - East Germany's state-run film agency - in 1950 and later that decade decided to concentrate all of his efforts on the screen, despite Brecht's objections.
He rose to become one of East Germany's best-known actors with scores of films to his credit, and won several awards for his work. He also became vice president of the country's film and television federation. Despite being a strong supporter of the communist movement, he appeared in several movies criticizing the East German government, which were not banned due to his reputation.

After the reunification of Germany, he was awarded with the national "Filmband in Gold" prize in 1993.
He acted in his last film, "Matulla und Busch," in 1995 under the direction of his son, Matti Geschonneck. Rest in peace!

In memory of this great artist here´s a radio feature by Thomas Heise, banned in East Germany in 1987 and broadcasted in 1989. It is called "Widerstand und Anpassung - Überlebensstategie" and features Erwin Geschonneck remembering his time in the concentration camp Dachau. The feature is in german language.

Widerstand und Anpassung - Überlebensstrategie (Originaltonfeature)

Dagmar Krause - Angebot & Nachfrage (Lieder von Brecht / Weill /Eisler) (1986)

"Supply and Demand: Songs by Brecht / Weill & Eisler" was the first solo album by German singer Dagmar Krause released by Hannibal Records in 1986.
It is a collection of 16 songs by German composers Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler, with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht and sung by Krause in English.
She also sung the songs in the original German which were released by Hannibal at the same time on a companion album, "Angebot & Nachfrage: Lieder von Brecht / Weill & Eisler".

Although seeking out Krause's work with Slapp Happy, Henry Cow and the Art Bears is worthwhile, ultimately the democracy of a band means less Dagmar to listen to. Therefore, go straight to this amazing solo recording of Krause singing the music of Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill and Hans Eisler. It's approachable, accessible ("Mack the Knife" is here under its original title, "Moritat"), beautifully sung (her version of "Surabaya Johnny" is definitive) and very, very moving. Krause's grandiose alto voice was perfectly suited to the emotionally and politically charged music of these German songs. Lyrically they continued the trend of earlier songs of social conscience Krause had performed, for example on Henry Cow's "Living in the Heart of the Beast".

Tracklist

A1 Angebot & Nachfrage (Song Von Der Ware) 2:57
A2 Grabrede 1919 1:59
A3 Deutsche Miserere 1:39
A4 O Falladah, Die Du Hangest! 2:41
A5 Alabama-Song 2:51
A6 Hollywood-Elegien 2:55
A7 Surabaya Johnny 3:59
A8 Moritat (Ballade Von Mackie Messer) 2:39
B1 Matrosen-Tango 3:57
B2 Die Ballade Von Der Höllenlili 2:25
B3 Das Lied Von Der Moldau 1:40
B4 Im Gefängnis Zu Singen 3:00
B5 Ostersonntag 1935 1:24
B6 Zu Potsdam Unter Den Eichen 2:22
B7 Der Song Von Mandelay 2:12
B8 Benares Song 3:52

This is the album with the songs sung in the original german language. You can find cd version mit some added songs in english language here.

Dagmar Krause - Angebot & Nachfrage (Lieder Von Brecht-Weill & Eisler)
(192 kbps, cover art included)

Colin Wilkie & Shirley Hart - Morning (1972) - Outside the City (1974)

The folk revival of the 1960s came to Germany through the playing of British-born singer/songwriter Colin Wilkie and his guitarist/vocalist wife Shirley Hart. The composer of hundreds of songs and stories, Wilkie spent 11 years as resident songwriter for SWF show Tellekolleg and seven years as host of his own weekly radio show. He passed on his unique fingerstyle approach to the guitar to influential German guitarist Franz Josef Degenhardt.

Wilkie's songs, which reflect on family, friends, political, and ecological themes, offer only a hint of his warm, intimate, stage persona. Wilkie and Hart's first album, released in 1965, was recorded with Scottish folksinger Alex Campbell. Musical theater has provided another outlet for Wilkie and Hart's talents. Their appearance as street singers in a production of John Arden's Life and Death at the Wuerttembergi National Theater in Stuttgart, helped to make the show so successful that it ran for several years.

Tracks
1. The Family of Man
2. The Wasteland
3. Morning Colin
4. The Soldier's Song
5. Willow and Rue
6. Portland Town
7. Eppelein von Gallingen
8. Put Your Hand In Mine
9. Icy Acres
10. Wat Tyler
11. When I'm Gone
12. Sunflowers
13. Mr. & Mrs. Ferlinghetti-Smith
14. The Pipelines
15. A Sailor's Life
16. Old 97
17. Ain't It Pretty
18. The Potato Eaters
19. Where Were You In the War?
20. The Unquiet Grave
21. The Märchengarten
22. The Bells of Rhymney


Colin Wilkie & Shirley Hart - Morning (1972) - Outside the City (1974)
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Zupfgeigenhansel - Volkslieder 2 (1977)

Zupfgeigenhansel was a German folk duo founded by Thomas Friz and Erich Schmeckenbecher. They were activ during the 1970s and 1980s. The group took its name from the famous Wandervogel Songbook "Der Zupfgeigenhansl" that appeared in 1909, although the group's repertoire overlaps only partially with the contents of the songbook.

Zupfgeigenhansel initially followed the idea of rediscovering and repopularising German folk songs with libertarian character, partly to be provided with their own melodies. These folk songs were dealing with the lives of "ordinary" people of the past centuries - they were telling stories about love, poverty, and venture, the contempt for authority and priests as well as the resistance against militarism.

Zupfgeigenhansel became a foundation stone - next Ougenweide, Hannes Wader and Liederjan - for an alternative German folk music, beyond traditional folk music occupied by conservatives.

Zupfgeigenhansel performed since 1974 in various folk clubs, mainly in southern Germany. A few radio appearances on the show "Liederladen" at "Südwestfunk" followed. 1976 her first album "Volkslieder I" was published on the Pläne label, "Volkslieder II" followed in 1977. That album was recorded in January 1977 at Conny Plank´s studio in Neunkirchen.

Tracks:
01. Ich bin ein freyer Bauern-Knecht (Traditional) 2.41
02. Und in dem Schneegebirge (Traditional) 2.35
03. Papst und Sultan (Traditional/Noack) 2.20
04. Annagret (Traditional) 1.51
05. Mein Michel (Traditional (Friz/Schmeckenbecher) 2.40
06. Mein Vater wird gesucht (Drach/Kohlmey) 2.50
07. Bürgerlied (Traditional) 3.23
08. Soldatenschicksal (Traditional (Friz/Schmeckenbecher) 2.37
09. Die bange Nacht (Traditional(Lyra) 1.43
10. Bibel und Flinte (Traditional) 1.22
11. Es dunkelt schon in der Heide (Traditional) 4.23
12. Die Brombeeren (Traditional) 3.04
13. Der Karmeliter (Traditional) 2.46
14. Ehestandsfreuden (Traditional) 4.16
15. Der Revoluzzer (live, bonus track) 2.28
16. Andre, die das Land so sehr nicht liebten (live, bonus track) 3.11

Max Roach ‎– We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite

"We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite", co-authored by Max Roach and Oscar Brown, Jr., was a pivotal work in the early-'60s African-American protest movement, and continues to be relevant in its message and tenacity. It represents a lesson in living as to how the hundreds of years prior were an unnecessary example of how oppression kept slaves and immigrants in general in their place. 

Vocalist Abbey Lincoln expresses this oppression as effectively as anyone could with her thespian-based wordless vocals, and lyrics written by Brown that tell the grim story of the struggle of African-American for far too long. Musically, Roach assembled one of the greatest bands, from his own emerging ensemble with trombonist Julian Priester and trumpeter Booker Little, to the legendary Coleman Hawkins and lesser-known, underappreciated tenor saxophonist Walter Benton. Percussionists Ray Mantilla and Michael Olatunji gave the poetic pieces sung by Lincoln enough substance and spice to also refer to Afro-Cuban and South American prejudice and urgency for change. Hawkins is particularly impressive, as his emotional range during the deep and dour, 5/4 slave song "Driva' Man" clearly feeds off of Lincoln's blues singing about quittin' time. 

"Triptych; Prayer/Peace/Protest" is the magnum opus of the set, introduced by Roach's signature drum moves, an eerie operatic vocal or oppressed angst yelling from Lincoln, and a 5/4 beat from the percussionist against a calmer vocal component, all written for interpretive dance. Of the modern jazz that Roach is renowned for, the horns jump into furious hard bop with solos from Little, Benton, and Priester on "Freedom Day" after Lincoln quietly invites you to "whisper/listen," while the obscure bassist James Schenck leads in 6/8 and 5/4 ostinato over Lincoln's sustained tones on "Tears for Johannesburg," with the layered horns in and out of well-wrought harmonies, and another triad of instrumental solos. "All Africa" sports lyrics about being on the beach, or maybe the beach head in the battle for freedom, as chants of tribal names echo similar village beats. 

This is a pivotal work in the discography of Roach and African-American music in general, its importance growing in relevance and timely, postured, real emotional output. Every modern man, woman, and child could learn exponentially listening to this recording - a hallmark for living life.


Tracklist:

Driva' Man  5:10
Freedom Day  6:02
Triptych: Prayer, Protest, Peace  7:58
All Africa  7:57
Tears For Johannesburg  9:36

Max Roach ‎– We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Victor Jara - Canto Libre

Victor Jara was an impoverished Chilean laborer who became a monk, a soldier, an actor and professor of theater; a political activist, a poet, and a popular folk musician; and ultimately a people's martyr following his brutal murder (along with thousands of his fellow citizens) in 1973 during the U.S.-backed military coup that toppled the government of Chile's democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende. Amidst widespread global outrage at this gruesome miscarriage of justice, Jara quickly became even more famous than he had been while alive, and his recordings were widely circulated throughout North America on LPs bearing the Monitor and Americanto labels.

"Canto Libre", a collection released during the 1990s, contains material dating back at least as far as 1970. Jara sang beautifully, always expressing his thoughts and viewpoints with unflinching honesty, playing his guitar alone or surrounded by folk musicians from nations and cultures all over Latin America. Jara's egalitarian discipline of cultural solidarity is manifest at various points in this collection, with words and music traceable to Mexico ("The Ballad of Pancho Villa"), Peru ("Inga"), and Bolivia ("El Tinku" and "How Happy Are the Women Workers"). Jara's devotion to socialism must be understood as a call for Chilean self-determination; the best way to put it in context would be to read Pablo Neruda's Memoirs. Jara was incredibly outspoken, and it was typical of him to come up with a title that translates as "Thus They Kill Blacks Today." His greatest achievement was the song "Canto Libre," with its soaring flutes, stirring percussion, and passionately strummed guitars. Victor Jara's spirit transcends all language barriers. Like his voice and the instrumentation, the poetry is tremendously moving and unforgettable: "My singing is a chain without beginning or end, and in each link is found the song of everyone else."       

     

 "Canto Libre" summarizes pretty well Víctor's gift to the good people struggling for justice. These are songs that he had to pay for with his own life, tortured to death one day in the soccer National Stadium in Santiago. His legacy mixes his undeniable Chilean roots and his exploration of other Latin American rythms. You may question his unique voice; however, you will eventually find out that it is that roughness that provides even more meaning to most of this collection.

Tracklist:

 1. Inga

  2. Cancion Del Arbol Del Olvido

  3. La Pala

  4. Venian Del Desierto

  5. Ventolera

  6. El Tinku

  7. Angelita Huenuman

  8. Corrido De Pancho Villa

  9. Caminando, Caminando

  10. Quien Mato A Carmencita

  11. Canto Libre

  12. El Aparecido

  13. El Lazo

  14. Que Alegres Son Las Obreras

  15. Despedimiento Del Angelito

  16. Solo

  17. Ay Mi Palomita

  18. Asi Como Hoy Matan Negros

  19. El Amor Es Un Camino Que De Repente...

  20. Casi, Casi

  21. Cancion De Cuna Para Un Nino Vago

  22. Romance Del Enamorada Y De La Muerte

  23. En Algun Lugar Del Puerto

Victor Jara - Canto Libre
(320 kbps, cover art included)

VA - Encuentro De La Canción Protesta. Casa de las Américas, Cuba (1967)

The term "nueva canción" was first mooted in public at a key event which took place in Cuba from 29 July until 10 August 1967: the "Encuentro de la Canción Protesta". This first international meeting of artist performing protest songs was organized by the "House of Americas". 

Fifty musicians from eighteen countries were given the opportunity to hear each other perform, exchange ideas and experiences, discuss the role of singer and song and establish friendships and contacts. Artist from four continents were brought together at a time of political upheavel in different parts of the world.

The appearance of Gerry Wolff, film actor and singer in the GDR, is another clue for the connection between the GDR song movement ("Singebewegung") and international revolutionary artists as mentioned before in the "Canto Libre" posting.

Daniel Viglietti, who participated in those days, said that "the meeting was an opportunity to discover that if you had fallen into the error of thinking we were alone, we were not alone". Singing in many languages, artists from all around the world expressed solidarity with the oppresed people and their fight for a better world.

The various stages reached in the development of movement in individual countries with different economic, social and political conditions and musical cultures had resulted in the usage of different terms: "Canción protesta", "canción comprometida", "canción politica revolucionaria" and "nueva canción". Other names used before and after include "canción folklórica", "cancion popular", "canción politica", "canciones de lucha y esperanze", "canto libre" and "canto nuevo".

Musicians, especially those who are members of, or allied to, the Communist Party, met intermittently before and after the Cuban "Encuentro" at Youth Festivals held every four years in the Socialst countries, as they also do at "International Festivals of Political Songs" held annualy in the GDR, at "Victor Jara Festivals", "Concert for Peace", various solidarity concerts and more recently "Nueva Canción" and "Canto Nuevo" Festivals held in Latin America. At the Cuban meeting, an "Encuentro", not a Festival, it was resolved that song should play an important role in the liberation struggles against North American imperialism and against colonialism, as it was agreed that song possessed enormous strength to communicate with the people and break down barriers, such as those of illiteracy, and taht in consequence it should be a weapon at the service of the people, not a consumer product used by capitalism to alienate them. Protest singers (as they continued to call themselves despite the debate) should be engaged in a constant enriching search for artistic quality, in itself a revolutionary activity. They should work amongst their people, confronting problems within their societies. For some of those involved this merely reflected what they wer doing already.

Tracklist:

01. Me gustan los estudiantes – Ángel Parra
02. A yime yo be Singing – Jean Lewis
03. Canción para mi América – Daniel Viglietti
04. Certainly Lord – Julius Lester
05. Mia cara moglie – Ivan Della Mea
06. Hasta siempre – Carlos Puebla
07. The ballad of Ho Chi Minh – Ewan Mccoll
08. Porque los pobres no tienen – Isabel Parra
09. Epigrama – Luis Cilia
10. The cutty wren – John Faulkner, Sandra Kerr y Terry Yarnell
11. Mi honda es la de David – Oscar Chávez
12. Vous – Martha Jean Claude
13. Bella ciao – Giovanna Marini, Elena Morandi e Ivan Della Mea
14. El pobre y el rico – Los Olimareños
15. Lettera del condennatto a morte – Elena Morandi
16. Juventud – Carlos Molina
17. Le coq chant – Onema Djamba Pascal
18. Lullaby for the times – Sandra Kerr
19. El mensú – Ramón Ayala
20. San Sang Ban – Tran Drung y Pham Duong
21. Der Hammer – Gerry Wolff
22. Coplas al compadre Juan Miguel – Alfredo Zitarrosa
23. Diguem no – Raimon
24. Coplera del viento – Oscar Matus y Armando Tejada Gómez
25. Hitler Ain’t Dead – Peggy Seeger
26. Coplas del pajarito – Rolando Alarcón

27. Hell no – Barbara Dane

VA -  Encuentro De La Canción Protesta. Casa de las Américas, Cuba (1967)

(192 kbps, cover art included)

Jalal - Mankind (On-U Sound, 1993)

Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, whose work in the spoken-word group the Last Poets helped earn him the title of the “Grandfather of Rap,” died on June, 4. He was 74. 

Nuriddin contributed to the Last Poets’ 1970 debut album as well as the follow-up, This Is Madness. These albums, which paired minimal, driving, percussive accompaniment with emphatic, relentlessly political spoken-word vocals, are widely regarded as crucial early examples of hip-hop.
In 1973, Nuriddin also demonstrated his lyrical dexterity as Lightnin’ Rod on the storytelling solo album Hustlers Convention. 

His musical path crossed that of Adrian Sherwood in the early 1990s. Mankind was originally released as a 10" disco plate via On-U Sound in 1993.
 

Tracklist:

1	Mankind (Part 1)	5:33
2	Mankind (Part 2)	5:10
3	Shade Of The Light (Part 1&2)	6:19
4	Shade Of The Light (Part 3)	4:00
5	Transcendental Twins	8:53

Jalal - Mankind (On-U Sound, 1993)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Sun Ra - Outer Spaceways Incorporated (1968)

This album adds a previously unreleased "Intergalactic Motion" to the original five-piece program. Sun Ra's orchestra was at its most radical during this period, alternating simple chants with very outside playing and dense ensembles.

While the sidemen include such notables as Marshall Allen and Danny Davis on altos, baritonist Pat Patrick, John Gilmore on tenor, bassist Ronnie Boykins and percussionist Clifford Jarvis, most of the other players in the 15-piece band (such as trumpeters Ahk Tal Ebah and Kwame Hadi) have slipped back into obscurity. This music is quite intriguing, although it requires an open mind and a sense of humor to fully appreciate.   

Tracklist:

1	Somewhere There	15:10
2	Outer Spaceways Incorporated	7:02
3	Intergalactic Motion	8:07
4	Saturn	6:08
5	Song Of The Sparer	4:22
6	Spontaneous Simplicity	7:56

Track 3 was previously unreleased, recorded in New York City 1968.

Sun Ra - Outer Spaceways Incorporated (1968)
(256 kbps, cover art included)          

Hanns Eisler - Vierzehn Arten den Regen zu beschreiben

These variations were written to accompany a documentary film made in 1941 by the Dutch artist Joris Ivens during Eisler's exile in America. They are based on a 12-tone row which contains an anagram of Eisler's teacher Arnold Schönberg (in German nomenclature A - Es - C - H - B - G, which translates to the notes A, E flat, C, B, B flat and G).

In this wonderfully impressionistic piece we can picture the rain beginning to fall amidst trills and tremolos, the dance of splashing droplets, sweet, simple remembrances of other rainy days, the slow streamlets of water draining away. It's up to the imagination of the listener as there are no titles to the sections. The scoring for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, violincello and piano shows the composer's exceptional talent for producing timbres.

These interpretations were recorded in Berlin and Dresden, in the years 1967 and 1987.

Hanns Eisler - Vierzehn Arten den Regen zu beschreiben
(192 kbps, front cover included)

Stefanie Wüst - Kurt Weill - A Musical Portrait

The German soprano, Stefanie Wüst, had worked before her singing studies, first in costume field and as assistant at several major German theaters (Oper und Ballett Frankfurt, Schauspielhaus Hamburg, Staatsoper München), and for several years worked in the films by Alexander Kluge. In addition to her singing studies at the Musikhochschule in Cologne she attended master-classes, including Edith Mathis and Gisela May.

In 1983 Stephanie Wüst appeared at the Kölner Schauspielhaus in the "Dreigroschen-oper" (Director: Jürgen Flimm). In 1989 she founded the ensemble KURZWEIL, in different combinations, especially for interpreting the works of Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler. In 1993 she released the album "Kurt Weill - A Musical Portrait" and she was the first in Europe to present Weill's long hidden early cycle "Ofrahs Lieder".

The selection chosen for this collection traces Weill´s development on two levels: the situation of his personal life and the evolution of his artistic expression.

Tracks:
1. Im Volkston
2. Ofrah's Lieder: In Meinem Garten Steh'n Zwei Rosen
3. Ofrah's Lieder: Nichts Ist Die Welt Mir
4. Ofrah's Lieder: Er Sah Mir Liebend In Die Augen
5. Ofrah's Lieder: Denkst Du Des Kuhnen Flugs Der Nacht
6. Ofrah's Lieder: Nur Dir Furwahr, Mein Stolzer Aar
7. Julia, Das Schone Kind
8. Die Stille Stadt
9. Berlin Im Licht-Song
10. Klops-Lied
11. Pollys Lied
12. Liebeslied
13. Surabaya-Johnny
14. Es Regnet
15. Der Abschiedsbrief
16. Complainte De La Seine
17. Youkali - Stephanie Wust/Albert Rundel/Thomas Wise
18. Je Ne T'aime Pas
19. J'attends Un Navire
20. Nannas Lied
21. Buddy On The Nightshift
22. Dirge For Two Veterans

Stefanie Wüst - Kurt Weill - A Musical Portrait

(192 kbps)

Bremer Chor "Die Zeitgenossen" & Gruppe Argus - Lieder zur internationalen Solidarität (1978)

Found this album on a record fair some weeks ago. It was recorded in July 1978 at Studio Nord, Bremen, and released in 1978 on the label "Verlag Atelier im Bauernhaus".

The choir "Die Zeitgenossen" from Bremen/Germany, conducted by Hartmut Emig, is accomapnied by some musicians, called "Gruppe Argus". They are singing and playing international solidarity songs from Greece, Chile, South Africa ,Germany, USA and Portugal. "Die Zeitgenossen" were seeing themselves as a part of an emanzipatoric choir movement, according to the Hanns Eisler slogan: "Unser Singen muss ein Kämpfen sein!"

These protest songs are beautiful folk music with a big choir of up to 100 singers according to the infos in the booklet scans. Sometimes even too beautiful if you consider the tragic songs and lyrics.

Tracklist:
01. Die ganze Erde uns (Greece) 03:00
02. Ich bin die Front (Greece) 02:53
03. Venceremos (Chile) 03:32
04. Das neue Leben (Chile) 03:12
05. Lied für unsere Gefallenen (Chile) 05:54
06. Nougqougqo (South Africa) 02:19
07. Ndodemnyama (South Africa) 02:48
08. Grândola, Vila Morena (Portugal) 02:47
09. Hold the fort (USA) 03:36
10. Und schon morgen (Germany) 03:59
11. Oh freedom (USA) 02:04

Musicians:
Bremer Chor Die Zeitgenossen

Gruppe Argus:
Wiebke Rendigs: vocals
Stephan Uhlig: guitar, vocals
Christian Uhlig: bass, vocals
Dietz Koldewey: guitar, vocals

Soloists:
Wiebke Rendigs: alto (1,6)
Rotraud Schalipp: soprano (5)
Ivesa Lübben: flute (5)
Achim Klug: bass (8)
Frank Drecoll, Heiner Borcherding: tenors (8)
Wilhelm Meerkamp: announcer (9)

Guests:
Alexander Ahrens: cello (5)
Rolf Wieneck: banjo (9)
Levi Gioro & the Athenians: bouzoukis (1,2)


Bremer Chor "Die Zeitgenossen" & Gruppe Argus - Lieder zur internationalen Solidarität (1978)
(ca. 256 kbps, cover art included)