Thanks a lot for taking the time to record and scan this record.

Mille grazie, Franco!

CARLO GENOVESI, Baby Luna, 1960

Frank is also drumming in the great western swing/rockabilly band The Starliters, who will be playing in Berlin on Saturday, May 14th at the Roadrunners Club. I´ll definetely be heading over to the Roadrunners Club! If you´re into rockabilly, come and see The Starliters!

Berlin Tempelhof Airport has a long history starting in 1923. In 1933 Berlin´s first concentration camp was established in this place. After Tempelhof Airport was massively reconstructed in 1936 by the Nazi governement, thousands of forced laborers worked there in air armament. Of course Tempelhof was also the base of the legendary  Berlin Airlift, the Allied mission to fly food and supplies to blockaded West Berlin in 1948-1949. The airport closed in 2008. Today it is a public park.

We´ll be dancing in Tempelhof park on Easter monday. To commemorate the US history of  the airport, here´s a 45 used for radio broadcasts. Betty Madigan together with Dick Hyman and his band advertise for WAF – Women in the Air Force.

“So rememer young ladies: if the life of the WAF appeals to you, talk with your local Air Force recruiter. Get in on the ground floor of the space age!”

BETTY MADIGAN WITH DICK HYMAN AND HIS BAND, Just Like Sam/  Candy, 1958

BETTY MADIGAN WITH DICK HYMAN AND HIS BAND, I`ll Never Say Never Again/  Tears ON My Pillow, 1958

JACK DIÉVAL ET SON SEPTUOR, Rock´n´Roll Ruby, 1956

JACK DIÉVAL ET SON SEPTUOR, Church Bells May Ring (Bing! Bang! Rock!), 1956

In the swinging Brieftaschen-Anni (wallet-Anni), sung in Austrian dialect, Luise Martini is telling the humorous story of Anni, a professional thief who “doesn´t like boogie, be-bop and rock´n´roll, because it makes stealing impossible when you´re twirling up in the air”.

LUISE MARTINI, Die Brieftaschen-Anni, 1957

LUISE MARTINI, Autofahrer unterwegs, 1957

Mona Baptiste, born in Trinidad in 1928, had already  established herself as a blues singer, when she arrived in London in 1948. In the subsequent years she worked with Cab Kaye in London and Stephane Grapelli in Paris. In 1953 she got her first contract with Polydor in Germany and recorded and performed together with Werner Müller and later with Bert Kämpfert. Starting in 1954 she appeared in seven German films in the 50s. Mona Baptiste continued to work into the 70s. She died in 1993 in Krefeld, Germany.

This song is the title track to the film  Mädchen für die Mambo-Bar from 1959. Last year I posted Heiße Musik, another song from the film here. Bear Family Records has reissued Mona Baptiste´s early 50s material on the LP Es liegt was in der Luft and these two tracks on their great all-girl CD compilation Vor Kurven wird gewarnt.

MONA BAPTISTE, Die Mädchen aus der Mambo-Bar, 1959

MONA BAPTISTE, Boy, komm und küß mich, 1959

Ralph  Benatzky, who wrote the song, became  famous for his musicals that combined more traditional with new 1920s jazz rhythms. His most famous play “Im weißen Rössl” (1930) was banned by the nazis because of its jewish co-authors and marked as “enartet” because it made fun of traditional values and because of  a saucy bathing scene. Benatzky left Berlin in 1932,  first to Switzerland and later for Hollywood.

TANZ-ORCHESTER MIT REFRAINGESANG, Manch “Nein” heisst “Vielleicht”, 1931

„ Manches „Nein“ heißt „Vielleicht“/ Und „Vielleicht“ heißt „Gewiss“, oder so/ Denn die Dame von Welt, die auf´s Äußere hält, bis auf da mit dem „Ja“/ Man kaschiert sein Gefühl, teils aus Scheu, teils kokett, oder so/  Kurz, in dem Augenblick, macht der Ton die Musik“

Tri -Ergon, a system to record sound directly on film, was invented in Berlin in 1919. Fox Movietone later used it among other sytems for one of  the first talking films, Friedrich Wihelm Murnau´s Sunrise (1927). The Tri-Ergon record label produced a wide variety of records in the 20s and early 30s. The smaller 8 inch records were the cheapos.

TANZ -ORCHESTER MIT REFRAINGESANG, Ich hab´ kein Herz seit 24 Stunden, 1931

Pictures from a program of  the Berlin Wintergarten music hall from May 1931, that  I bought some years ago in a thrift store. Actually it´s a small mgazine filled with photos and little articles about Berlin nightlife. The cover and one more illustration are signed by BALKIE,  a cartoonist the Internet has no knowledge of. I really like his style and wish I could find more information about the artist.

As was common practice with cheapo labels, the names of the artists didn´t appear on the labels but often well-known artists were playing on the recordings.  The musicians of the “Argentinean Tango Band” were most likely  local Berliners. The original of Heut tanz´ ich nur mit dir (today I´ll only dance with you) was written by famous Berlin composer  Will Meisel.

ARGENTINISCHE TANGO-KAPELLE, Heut tanz´ ich nur mit dir, 1930

ARGENTINISCHE TANGO-KAPELLE, Auf einer kleinen Bank im Park, 1930

A single page probably from another program, that I “found” in the May 1931 Wintergarten program, with a poem by Erich Kästner and nice photo of  contortionist Barbara La May.

So what do I post next? More scratchy 78s? Not until I find a better way of recording them. As much as I like to listen to the shellac records on my record player, so far the results of my digitizing are painful to listen to.  While searching in my collection for something to get me at least a little bit inspired I found these records. They make a transition from the early to the late 50s. From swing on 78rpm to swing on 45.

Some nice up-tempo swing music on Top-Light by Heinrich Riethmüller and his orchestra from an advertisement record for the film “Elektroschiffe – Voll voraus” (full ahead) produced by the AEG company, proudly showing all of the electrical equipment on the electric-diesel ship “Wappen von Hamburg”. A quick look at Wikipedia revealed that it is currently being renovated in San Fransisco, California. The new owners even made a cool blog about the history of the vessel.

HEINRICH RIETHMÜLLER TANZORCHESTER, Top-Light, 1959

HEINRICH RIETHMÜLLER TANZORCHESTER, Voll voraus!, 1959

The song was originally written by Michael Jary for the film “Die dritte von rechts” from 1950,  a spectacle picture most notable for Laya Raki´s taped nipples.

HEINRICH RIETMÜLLER & DAS CORNEL-QUINTETT, Winke Winke, 1950

As indicated on the back of the sleeve Heinrich Riethmüller recorded at least seven more 45s for the Austrian Amadeo label. He can be heard playing the electric piano on these two automobile related songs: Grüne Welle (A lucky streak of being given the green light at crossings) and Romanze für 12PS (PS = horsepower, so I guess it´s veeeery slow romance).

HEINRICH RIETHMÜLLER UND SEINE SOLISTEN, Grüne Welle, 1959

HEINRICH RIETHMÜLLER UND SEINE SOLISTEN, Romanze für 12PS, 1959

I love this song! It´s schmaltzy and it is a little irritating when they sing about “das schöne Hula-Mädchen mit dem  rabenschwarzen Haar” (the pretty hula girl with the pitch black hair), but compared to the majority of German  Hawaiian music, this doesn´t sound so damn German.  Because it isn´t. The Dutch duo Goldy and Peter de Vries, backed by the  Horst Wende Trio, recorded in the ruins of Hamburg.

This is a 78rpm record that I bought two weeks ago in a local Berlin thrift store for 50 cents….

GOLDY UND PETER DE VRIES, Mich zieht´s zurück nach Hawaii, 1949

Peter de Vries is mentioned in this 1951 article about some Kids in cowboy gear posing in the ruins near the Cologne Cathedral. Apparently he was quite famous for his cowboy songs in the early 50s.

Indianer gingen – Cowboys blieben.

Geschäfte für Scherzartkel, die früher an kleine Kunden Indianer-Kopfschmuck verkauften, verdanken heute dem Cowboy-Darsteller William Boyd, der als “Hopalong Cassidy” in zahlreichen Filmen die Kinder in aller Welt begeistert, ungeahnten Umsatz. In Deutschland half der Schlagersänger Peter de Vries, die Cowboys und ihre Lieder populär zu machen. (Neue Illustrierte, Köln 1951)

Not this one. Although sung in Danish, and nowhere as fast as the original “Blazin´The Trail To My Home” written by Teddy Powell and recorded in 1945 by Gene Autry, Eddie Russell´s version is a pretty close approximation of American western swing music. Or at least much closer than every German Cowboy song I have ever heard.

Now if I only found a cheap way of getting rid of the awful clicks and hisses. This record cost 50 cents.

EDDIE RUSSELL, Cowboyens Sang, 1949

EDDIE RUSSELL, The Last Round-Up, 1949

VALDEMAR DAVIDS, Managua, Nicaragua, 1947

This is a Wikipedia photo of Danish bandleader Teddy Petersen (1892-1991) and his orchestra, probably at restaurant Wivex at Tivoli in Copenhagen in 1941. Petersen is standing to the far left with violin.

Teddy Petersen also appears in this 1941 film. The showgirls in the silky hot pants arguing with the lady toward the end of the film almost made me pee my pants:

Just for comparison, this is Freddy Martin´s original version of  Managua, Nicaragua:

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Recently I bought a stack of 78 rpm records and have really fallen in love with some of the tunes I “found” on them.  They were 50 cents a piece, so they are not in good shape but I still played some of them in our last radio show and even played them at a little  DJ Trümmerswing dance recently. The German swing records went over surprisingly well with the dancers.

I know, there are many serious German record collectors out there who know much more about 78rpm records than I do, but then again, there are no German music-bloggers that write about them.  So I might as well write what I know.

These records and artists were successful locally, but mostly went unnoticed in the rest of the world. Unless you know German, you will still not find much info about them today.  Most of these songs have been re-issued on CD, but I don´t think the quality of my records should hurt anybody´s business. There are fine re-issues of  Rita Paul, Peter Cornehlsen & the Cornel-Trio and Ilja Glusgal available. Even the most blatent CD-rip-off-blogs claim it, but in this case I really mean it: if you like these tunes,  despite the horrible quality of my recordings, go out and buy the CDs.

“Verlieb´ dich nicht am Nordpol” by Peter Cornehlsen and his Cornel-Trio  (also known as the Corni-Trio, Cornel-Quartett, Cornel-Quintett und Coronels) backed by Kurt Henkels and his orchestra, has been one of my new favourites recently. Kurt Henkels was Eastern-Germany´s king of swing.  The song was originally written by Michael Jary for the 1951 film “Die verschleierte Maja” (The Veiled Lady), one of the first big (West-) German musical production after the war.

“Don´t fall in love at the North Pole, because it will even freeze hot love!”

CORNEL-TRIO, Verlieb´ dich nicht am Nordpol, 1951

I found some photos of the movie in a article in Neue Illustrierte newspaper Nr. 26, June 6, 1951:

Filmed in Hamburg.

This might not be the really wild and fast type of swing music, but German music never got to be more swingin´ than Ilja Glusgal backed by Walter Dobschinski and his orchestra.

“Without the ke-, ka-, kiss, what would couples do?”

ILJA GLUSGAL, Wenn der Ki-, wenn der Ka-, wenn der Kuß nicht wär, 1949

From the same year, this picture from Paprika magazine, published in Berlin. The young dream girl of 1949: