This is an album with songs by Paul Dessau and lyrics by Bertolt Brecht, in the interpretation of Sonja Kehler. The album was recorded in 1976 and released in 1977 on the NOVA label in the GDR.
(born Dec. 19, 1894,
Hamburg, Ger.—died June 28, 1979,
East Berlin, GDR) was a German composer and conductor best known for his operas and other vocal works written in collaboration with
Bertolt Brecht. Dessau’s conducting career included posts in
Cologne (1919–23) and Berlin (1925–33). His long collaboration with Brecht began in 1942 in the United States, where he wrote the
music (1946) for Brecht’s play
Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (
Mother Courage and Her Children), the most popular of the Brecht-Dessau works. From 1948, they continued their partnership in East
Germany, where Dessau composed his most successful
opera,
Die Verurteilung des Lukullus (1949; “The Sentencing of Lucullus”; also called
Das Verhör des Lukullus [“The Trial of Lucullus”]), with libretto by Brecht. Dessau’s other works include the opera
Einstein (1971–73).
His opera "Die Verurteilung des Lukullus" drew sharp criticism from the Party. Still, Dessau was highly respected: in 1952, he was voted membership into the Academy of Arts in East Berlin, then was appointed its vice president in 1957, serving until 1962. From 1962 to 1975, he taught at a primary school in the Berlin suburb of Zeuthen, where he lived since 1954. He remained active in composition in his last years and never acquiesced to Party officials, who often condemned his works.
Sonja Kehler was born on February 2, 1933 in Haldersleben near Magdeburg. After graduating from the College of Drama in Leipzig she was given engagements at several theatres in the GDR, before launching on an international career as a freelance singer and actress. Sonja Kehler made a name for herself above all as a performer of works by Bertolt Brecht, whether as Shen Te in “The Good Person of Sezuan”, as Jenny in “The Threepenny Opera” or as Grusche in “The Caucasian Chalk Circle”.
Nevertheless in the 80s she was barely alowed to perform in the GDR. The repression started when one of her musicians didn´t come back to GDR after a concert “in the West”. Sonja Kehler told about that time in an interview: “I couldn´t get work in the GDR, no concerts, no recordings, but I was allowed to tour abroad again because it brought in foreign currency. I had of course done a lot in the GDR before that: concerts, theatre, shows, television work. But at a particular point that all stopped and I was only allowed to perform abroad. At that time Bernd Wefelmeyer was already my accompanist. In 1978 I made a very accomplished Brecht recording with hi but it was never released in the GDR, although WERGO did market it in the West”.
Tracklist:
Das Zukunftslied
Zwei Lieder aus Der Kaukasische Kreidekreis"
Bei den Hochgestellten
Zwei Kinderlieder
Drei Lieder aus "Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder"
Historie vom verliebten Schwein Malchus
Tierverse
Kampflied der schwarzen Strohhüte
Drei Lieder aus"Der gute Mensch von Sezuan"
Bitte der Kinder aus Herrnburger Bericht"
Sonja Kehler - Dessau Lieder (Nova)
(ca. 224 kbps, cover art included)
Heinrich Frankl, called Hai, was born in Charlottenbrunn (Seleucia) on February 14, 1920. Beginning in 1930 he lived with his parents in Wiesbaden-Biebrich. In 1939, just before the war began, Hai Frankl emigrated to Lahäll near Stockholm (Sweden) and studied painting in Stockholm. 
Miriam Makeba had just made a splash in New York nightclubs and earned a fistful of press only a few months earlier when RCA Victor Records snapped her up and recorded her first album in May 1960. Clearly, the label was hoping to repeat the success of her mentor, Harry Belafonte, whose Belafonte Folk Singers accompanied her on some tracks and who wrote a blurb for the album's back cover. 
During the folk boom of the late '50s and early '60s, the New Lost City Ramblers introduced audiences to the authentic string band sound of the 1920s and '30s, in the process educating a generation that had never heard this uniquely American sound of old-time music. While maintaining music with a social conscience, they added guts and reality to the folk movement, performing with humor and obvious reverence for the music. In 1958, Mike Seeger, John Cohen, and Tom Paley modeled their band after groups like the Skillet Lickers, the Fruit Jar Drinkers, and the Aristocratic Pigs, choosing a name in keeping with the past. When Tracy Schwarz replaced Paley in 1962, the NLCR added solo songs from the Appalachian folk repertoire, religious and secular, educating a large segment of the American population about traditional music. Folkways recorded the NLCR on five albums in the early '60s, making the Ramblers famous and leading to TV appearances, successful tours, and appearances at the Newport Folk Festival. A songbook with 125 of their songs came out in 1964 and sold well. 
This bootleg collects some early and rare Neil Young recordings. 
In the history of the blues, there has never been anyone quite like the Howlin' Wolf. Six foot three and close to 300 pounds in his salad days, the Wolf was the primal force of the music spun out to its ultimate conclusion. A Robert Johnson may have possessed more lyrical insight, a Muddy Waters more dignity, and a B.B. King certainly more technical expertise, but no one could match him for the singular ability to rock the house down to the foundation while simultaneously scaring its patrons out of its wits.
Longtime Folkways recording artists The New Lost City Ramblers perform 17 period songs about liquor, bootlegging, and Prohibition (1917-1933) in the traditional style of southern mountain string bands. As Rambler member Mike Seeger observes in the liner notes, many of the songs appear to have been written by people who knew drink well and were familiar with it's effects. Several of the songs consist of new lyrics commemorating the virtues or evils of alcohol set to familiar melodies of the time. Rambler member John Cohen also contributed to the liner notes, which include an informal history of prohibition in America as well as song lyrics and photos. 
Makeba´s life has consistently been marked by struggle. As the daughter of a sangoma, a mystical traditional healer of the Xhosa tribe, she spent six months of her birth year in jail with her mother. Gifted with a dynamic vocal tone, Makeba recorded her debut single, "Lakutshona Llange," as a member of the Manhattan Brothers in 1953. Although she left to form an all-female group named the Skylarks in 1958, she reunited with members of the Manhattan Brothers when she accepted the lead female role in a musical version of King Kong, which told the tragic tale of Black African boxer, Ezekiel "King Kong" Dlamani, in 1959. The same year, she began an 18-month tour of South Africa with Alf Herbert's musical extravaganza, African Jazz and Variety, and made an appearance in a documentary film, Come Back Africa. These successes led to invitations to perform in Europe and the United States. 
I have owned this cd for several years and never get tired of listening to it. It points up the star quality of the Bucharest State Jewish Theater, which somehow prospered under the repressive Ceausescu regime in Romania. I am not sure if it still exists, but this wonderful and inexpensive disk preserves an excellent record of their virtuosity and talent. 
"Street Scene" is a Broadway musical or, more precisely, an "American opera" by Kurt Weill (music), Langston Hughes (lyrics), and Elmer Rice (book). Written in 1946 and premiered in Philadelphia that year, Street Scene is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name by Rice.
