Joe Meek records in Germany Part 4: Cover versions (
Cover versions of Joe Meek productions, released on German labels. No direct contribution of Joe Meek himself in any of these recordings (except Alle Mädchen wollen küssen/Be Mine; more info at the end of this page).
Apollo 100 was a short-lived classic rock project initiated by the British composer and arranger Tom Parker. The Bach adaption Joy remained his only hit, followed by the much less successful Mendelssohn's Fourth. This unimaginative Telstar cover was Parker's third 45 and flopped completely. The general impression is fittingly rounded off by the sleeve which doesn't show "Telstar" but it's Soviet workmate "Sputnik". - By the way, the drummer playing in Parker's studio band was Clem Cattini who already drummed on the original Telstar version from 1962.
In the mid-seventies, Mike Berry got rediscovered by some Dutch-Belgian radio pirates, which led to a couple of releases on the Dutch label Pink Elephant Records. One of them was this remake of his own bestseller from 1961. This version is arranged with strings, besides this Berry allegedly obtained the blessings of Holly's widow. In October 1975 it peaked at #2 of the Dutch charts. In Germany this version was released on Hansa Records. The cover wrongly states "Number 1 in Holland", but it didn't help, in Germany the remake failed completely.
The Telstar melody has a couple of intervals which remind strongly to Zarah Leander's Ich weiß, es wird einmal ein Wunder gescheh'n from 1942. Maybe these intervals are to blame that the German lyrics which occurred to Carl Ulrich Blecher are in no way inferior to that old "stay the course" song. Or maybe the reason is just that Mr Blecher was a dentist in real life. Felgen's pathetic singing style does its bits to make the song more or less unbearable for today's ears. According to the GEMA catalogue Felgen recorded more than one version of this song, probably for different albums and maybe for TV shows. The respective sub-arrangers were Jože Privšek, Herbert Gabriel, K. Becker and Erich Becht. It's not possible anymore to find out whose arrangement has been used for this 45.
In 1963 Felgen's German Telstar version has also been released in France on La Voix de Son Maitre 7EGF 624 A.
Ted Herold (= Harald Schubring) needs no introduction within the German-speaking countries. There he is a well-known rock 'n' roller, singing mostly in German language. A better photographer would have been nice, however. Producers of this record are Mike Gibson and Joe Hamborn (the latter's real name is Helmut Müller; he's the owner of the record company).
The German version of Geoff Goddard's top composition Johnny Remember Me; the German lyrics were provided by Werner Cyprys (he became prominent with his ensemble Friedel Hensch & die Cyprys that released tongue-in-cheek schlager classics like Das alte Försterhaus or Der Mond von Wanne-Eickel). Fud Leclerc was a Belgian singer with the real name Fernand Urbain Dominique (= F. U. D.) Leclercq. Between 1956 and 1962 he competed four times fruitlessly for his country at the "Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson" (as the "Eurovision Song Contest" was called at that time). For a short time he worked as an actor, gigged later as pianist with Juliette Gréco, and finally became a building contractor. Today he's retired and lives in Brussels.
John Paris was an academical-skilled jazz singer from Liverpool who stranded in 1953 in Frankfurt, after long travels and tourings. He became a host at Radio Frankfurt and recorded several tunes he didn't like, especially because of his (unobstrusive) accent he usually was expected to make a fool of himself (Darling, ich dich lieben so, to name an example - this kind of crap was seen as funny at that time, at least there were several records on this humorous level; best known probably Gus Backus' Bohnen in die Ohren). In 1958, Paris entered the preliminaries of the Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson, but had no success. In the sixties finally he switched over to gastronomy. John Paris died in Frankfurt in 1979. The German lyrics for Joe Meek's composition Put A Ring On Her Finger wrote Gustav Auerbach. Further info on the song see the following paragraph.
There's no need to say anything about Les Paul and Mary Ford; they are classics in their own right. - Since the mid-fifties Joe Meek used to write songs from time to time. One of them got into producer George Martin's hands who recorded it as a single with singer Eddie Silver: Put A Ring On Her Finger. The song flopped in England, but in the US Les Paul & Mary Ford heard it and recorded a cover version. This one made it into the US Top 40. For the first time ever Joe Meek earned money with a composition. Further cover versions of this song followed, among others by Tommy Steele. All in all his (musically not really remarkable) composition got Joe Meek about 3000 Pounds, which today would be equivalent to circa 120,000 Pounds (= 195,000 US Dollars or 133,000 Euros). Meek used these royalties to start his own record company Triumph in 1960. Les Paul, by the way, when he was asked whether he ever heard of Joe Meek, said that he "didn't really know anything about him" - which is not very astonishing, because Joe Meek wrote the song under his Robert Duke pseudonym. When Les Paul was told that Meek's recording methods are very similar to his own, he said: "I'll be darned; that shows you how close someone can be, and yet so far away!" - Les Paul passed away on August 13, 2009.
The German lyrics of this cover version are written by schlager singer and producer Peter Orloff; the original title is stated wrong on the label as well as on the sleeve. Tribute To Buddy Holly, as the title reads correctly, was penned by Geoff Goddard and has been released in September 1961 with Joe Meek's vocally Holly reincarnation Mike Berry. The song was Meek's atmospheric obituary for his big hero, including a striking quotation of Peggy Sue. Mike Berry received a letter of thanks from Holly's surviving dependents for his single; nothing in this direction has been heard yet about Frank Rothe's version.
The German lyrics of this Meek/Goddard composition were written by Fred Landor. Herbert F. Schubert (born February 12, 1937, in Glatz/Silesia) was a well-known dancer, choreographer and teenager heartthrob of the fifties and sixties. After an apprenticeship as logistics manager in Herford he went to Hamburg to take dance, singing and acting classes, besides this he jobbed as a waiter in Hamburg's red light district Sankt Pauli. In 1957 he started his professional career in São Paulo where he had his own TV show, after his return he worked in Paris with Maurice Béjart, in 1962 he founded his own dance company named "Herbert-Dancers", runned a ballet school in Hamburg (Ute Lemper later became one of its students), and finally in 1967 he became head of the German ZDF TV ballet company. All in all he took part in more than 300 TV shows all over the world, at the Deutsche Schauspielhaus in Hamburg he worked with famous actor Gustaf Gründgens. As a singer he was less successful. In the eighties he became head of the ballet company of the Stadttheater Münster and teached as a visiting professor at the University of Arts in Berlin and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg. He had to retire in 1996 after falling seriously ill. Schubert lives in Berlin and is still active as a creative consultant for show events from time to time.
Herbert F. Schubert
Remarks on this song see above under Les Paul & Mary Ford.
German 45 Spanish EP This instrumental was released on a 45 A side in Germany. In Spain its two sides were released as side A of an EP (Polydor 21944 EPH); on side B there were two tracks with the Bert Kaempfert Orchestra. Both records didn't have any commercial success. "The Telstars" are singer, songwriter, sound engineer and later producer Wolfgang Roloff (born March 10, 1930, in Bremen) and trombonist, orchestra leader and arranger Kai Warner (= Werner Last, born October 27, 1926, in Bremen, died July 9, 1982, in Hamburg; brother of orchestra leader James Last). Roloff had been in the music business already since 1954 as a soloist under his real name or under pseudonyms with several ensembles (The Blizzards, Valerie-Trio, Bob & Eddy); under several fantasy names - like here - he recorded also instrumental music. Besides this, in the early sixties he laid down several "adult humor records" under the name of "Otto Bänkel", wearing old-fashioned suits, a bowler hat and an affixed mustache. In 1959 he started a collaboration with producer, composer and lyricist Hans Hee (January 30, 1924 - December 10, 2009). This team became highly successful: In 1964, Roloff started into a singing career under the name of "Ronny", they successfully achieved the feat to inject three hits into the orbit within only one year: Oh My Darling Caroline, Kleine Annabell, Kein Gold im Blue River; later, in 1968 Ronny added the folk music hit Hohe Tannen. The Roloff/Hee team at this time also provided several horrible tearjerkers for the then 13-year-old Dutch import Heintje. Their opus Sierra Madre del Sur from 1970 finally failed in Ronny's own version but in the eighties it sold like hot cake in the German folksy schlager scene when several of its stars - like Marianne & Michael, the Schürzenjäger, the Kastelruther Spatzen - covered the song. Ronny retired from being an active musician a couple of years ago but still runs his recording studio near Bremen. Kai Warner studied music theory as well as piano, trombone and composition, in his beginnings he worked mainly as a film music arranger. During a couple of semesters in the U.S. he played with several big bands, after his return to Germany he played with several ensembles, among them "The Blizzards" with Roloff. In 1966 he finally became in-house producer at Polydor Records, where he discovered the talents of schlager singer Renate Kern and others. In the mid-seventies he changed to Philips Records because the giant shadow of his brother James Last (who alone made a third of Polydor's business volume at that time!) became too irksome to him. He released his last record in 1982.
The original song was entitled Wild Wind and sung by John Leyton. As any proper Joe Meek or Geoff Goddard song, Wild Wind doesn't do without mentioning death ("Hey there, wild wind, when my time is done / Carry my soul beyond the sun / Far away, wild wind"). The German lyrics, written by very busy Günter Loose (who, among other things, provided German lyrics for a couple of Johnny Cash songs) were only a pale reflection: "He-jo Südwind, wenn die Wolken zieh'n / Möchte ich gerne mit ihnen flieh'n / Bring mich heimwärts, Südwind" ("Heyo south wind, when the clouds are drifting / I would like to flee with them / Carry me home, south wind"). Besides this, the original song has one of Meek's wildest choir arrangements, which the copy by far can't keep up with. Gert Timmerman (b. June 8, 1935) is a very successful singer and schlager composer at home in the Netherlands. As several of his fellow countrymen, he recorded a couple of tracks in German language in the sixties, but in this case the success was rather limited. In 1974 he became a convert to Baptism, broke up with it later, took part in missionary broadcasts of EO ("Evangelische Omroep") and lived in Israel for a while. In later years Timmerman got loads of trouble with his family and his management and hid from the press for a while. In 2006 he appeared as "hotelier" in the Dutch reality TV show "Hotel Big Brother" but quit after 55 days for reasons of conscience. Recently Timmerman could be seen in missionary TV shows again.
Gert Timmerman, ca. 1963
Back sleeve (detail): "Donald Wolf, cowboy with doctoral cap" The original is "Only The Heartaches", sung by Joe Meek's Northern England cowboy Houston Wells, a song written by Wayne P. Walker. The German lyrics were written by Dolf Bokler, who did some more similar western and itchy-feet lyrics, but mainly he wrote folksy sing-along lyrics. - The arranger and bandleader of this recording was no less than Ladi Geisler, the well-known player of the legendary "knack bass" ("click bass") in the Bert Kaempfert Orchestra. Donald Wolf's real name was Eberhard Werthmann; his doctoral thesis mentioned on the back sleeve above was entitled "The tendencies of the German record industry, its current state and its market models", for which he received his Dr. rer. pol. (Ph.D.) in June 1958 from the Karl Franzens University of Graz, Austria.
Cover page of Eberhard Werthmann's doctoral thesis, 1958 Eberhard Werthmann already had an office day job when he took part in a singing competition. Kai Warner (see above, "The Telstars") hired him for a back-up vocal group. He encouraged Werthmann to step into a solo career and recommended him to a duo called "The Colorados" which became his band for a while. One member of the Colorados was sound engineer and singer Wolfgang "Ronny" Roloff (see also above under "The Telstars") who had a collaboration going with producer, composer and lyricist Hans Hee. In all probability it was Hee who took Werthmann under his wing and introduced him to Teldec Records. Not a bad start, one should think. But Donald Wolf's solo career came to nothing, even though no obvious mistakes were made: With his sonorous baritone voice somewhere between Ronny and Freddy Quinn he systematically surfed the "cowboys and sailors" wave that was highly popular in Germany at that time and had given these singers massive chart successes. Also the record company bore with him - Gold in der Sierra already was the third run-up, Teldec provided him first-class musicians and arrangers, and the original song, Houston Wells' Only The Heartaches, had been in the UK charts for ten weeks. Musically as well as lyrically Wolf's cover version was in the thick of the zeitgeist; so as far as anyone could judge, this 45 should have been at least an average hit. It wasn't meant to be. Wolf apparently didn't expect any realistic chance anymore after three false starts and turned to a day job as business journalist. Nevertheless, a follow-up 45 was released in 1964: Die richtige Liebe (True Love), but its flip side title turned out to be prophetic: Adios, Pasado, Vorbei (Goodbye, Over, Out). It remained Wolf's last record. Indeed, in the late summer of 1965 he recorded two further songs with the Martin Böttcher Orchestra: Thank You, My Darling, Goodbye / Wer weiß, wohin die Sonne uns führt (Who knows where the sun will lead us to) and had the opportunity to present one of them in the ZDF TV boulevard magazine "Die Drehscheibe" on January 12, 1966, but the songs didn't appear on record anymore. After his failed Donald Wolf career the sun lead Eberhard Werthmann to a more successful professional life as a businessman. He passed away in Hamburg, probably around 2000 (it's not possible to find out the exact date). The bereaved hired Ladi Geisler to play on his funeral obsequies. Geisler didn't notice who the deceased had been a long time ago - until a record of Donald Wolf was played.
Donald Wolf (= Eberhard Werthmann), 1963
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Alle Mädchen wollen küssen / Be Mine
Be Mine, laid down 1959 by Lance Fortune in English language, was the first Top 10 hit Joe Meek produced. It was a cover version of a German schlager. The tune, catchy as hell, was written in 1958 by Tobby Lüth, Joe Menke and Mario Panas (= Leo Leandros, born 1926 as Leo Papathanassiou in Astakos, Greece) under the title Alle Mädchen wollen küssen. It was first published in 1959 with singer Leo Leandros as the flip side of his 45 Carmen Ramona. This slightly lame version became the model for the cover version Joe Meek produced with singer Lance Fortune in January 1960. Marcel Stellman wrote the English lyrics, and Meek hired Johnny Prendy (= John Barry) to provide the song a more crisp arrangement. This recording reached #4 in the UK and stayed in the charts for 12 weeks. A little bit later this version was "covered back" by Peter Kraus as an A side, now with the original German lyrics again but arranged now similar to the John Barry arrangement.
Leo Leandros
The original version, 1959
German pressing
The original British Pye pressing Joe Meek's cover version, 1959. The English lyrics were written by Marcel Stellman. The accompaniment director "Johnny Prendy" is a pseudonym of composer and arranger John Barry.
The cover version of the cover version, 1960. Arranger Erwin Halletz, to put it mildly, is geared here to the John Barry arrangement.
As a typical "schlager" of the late fifties and early sixties, the tune has been covered again for several times:
Even though he was able to leave the budget label Tempo and to went on to the reputable Polydor: As a singer, Rainer Bertram wasn't very lucky. So in 1964 he gave up his musical career. After a short interlude as an actor in Vienna he became one of the most successful directors for TV shows in German television up till the eighties.
Rainer Bertram, circa 1960
Single-sided flexidisc, early sixties
Single-sided flexidisc, early sixties "Prima" was a flexidisc label runned by Erich Pabel Verlag, a publishing house mainly for comics and pulp novels. The two records shown above are using the same recording. Originally it came from the Munich-based budget label Starlet which used to license its recordings to several other budget labels. The names Hanno Frey and Christopher Crim are of course pseudonyms. Mostly this singer used the name Tim Olaf, under this name there's even an autograph card existing (see below). He also recorded under the names Tid Felder, Eddy de Groot and Gerd Wienand; as "Solm Brothers" he even did two-voice multiplay recordings. Under these names (and maybe also as Ronny Merten, Fred Solm and Hilmar Stephan) he worked for several budget labels, among others Bobby, Hallo, Imavox (a Prima subsidiary), Terra-Ton, Tip-Top and Tonika. With a recording entitled Bosporus Blues Tim Olaf (under this name) even managed to get published by Ariola Records in 1961. For a last time the name Tim Olaf appeared on a record in 1962 (on the Tip label) which apparently finished his musical career. Tim Olaf's real name is Clemens Faulstich (born 1938 probably in the Munich area), in 1954 he started an apprenticeship as electrician at a big Munich electrical industry group. He was a school day friend of German actress Christiane Rücker; from 1965 to 1968 the both of them were married to each other. Not much is known of Faulstich's whereabouts after this. In the 1990s he apparently worked for the tourist information of Oberstdorf (in the Allgäu region of the Bavarian Alps); if this is true, then he probably went into retirement around 2003. Clemens Faulstich, circa 1960 - pseudonyms: Tim Olaf, Hanno Frey, Christopher Crim, Tid Felder, Eddy de Groot, Gerd Wienand, Solm-Brothers and probably some more
By the way: Budget labels were a phenomenon mainly from the fifties to the seventies; most of them gave up then (a few of them, however, switched over to records and cassettes for children then and became phenomenally successful). Cover versions of popular hits were their main business, produced at low costs with unknown singers and musicians and sold mainly at department stores, supermarkets and gas stations. Their record sales weren't and aren't counted for the charts, but we can be sure that during the 1960s in Germany hundreds of thousands of budget records rotated at party rooms in the basements, alotment garden parties and skittles evenings. When instrumentalists and singers appeared on budget labels, it didn't necessarily mean they were second-rate musicians. Some instrumentalists who worked for the Munich-based budget label Tempo are known for being members of the Max Greger Orchestra; members of the Hamburg-based hard rock band Lucifer's Friend (who again had personal cross-connections to James Last Orchestra) did recordings under several fantasy names for the budget label Europa. Working under pseudonyms for budget labels could be a lucrative source for an extra income especially for instrumentalists; sometimes this was their bread-and-butter job, allowing them to play under their real name the music they really liked. The pseudonyms used by singers and musicians who appeared on budget labels are nearly impossible to decipher, particularly since sometimes these record companies released recordings of several different singers under collective pseudonyms. Radio and TV, however, never played these records, so the real persons behind the pseudonyms always remained unknown. And the GEMA (the German copyrights society), where of course all pseudonyms are registered, doesn't give any information, even if the name holders deceased long ago. Usually these musicians didn't participate in the record sales, they were payed per recording session. That's why especially the vocalists had to gig under several pseudonyms for several labels: It was pure necessity; they couldn't have survived otherways.
This is an instrumental version, originally released in the U.S. under the title Be Mine on Kapp Records 329 B, but for the German release the record company preferred the German title because it sounded more familiar here. (In the fifties and sixties it was not unusual to rename foreign instrumentals with - sometimes absurd - German titles, because most Germans and Austrians at that time didn't speak English, so in a record shop they wouldn't have had a clue how to pronounce them.) There are no informations on the Garlands available; probably they were session musicians to be marketed under a fantasy name.
"Bob Gerry" is again one of those typical budget label pseudonyms. The singer with the real name Werner Hass (b. December 25, 1927) started his career in the GDR with the "Singende Vier" ("The Singing Four") until his working permission was revoked, so he had to move to Western Germany in 1959. As a soloist and with his sister Ilse (then as "Geschwister Haas") he recorded for Telefunken, Decca, later also Metronome, Polydor and Ariola as well as for Tefifon tapes. From the beginning he also worked for the budget labels Baccarola and Opera; usually under the pseudonyms Bob Gerry and Pat Hardy, maybe also Ted Hobbs. He took part in Günter Neumann's then famous RIAS radio cabaret group "Die Insulaner" as well as in numerous radio shows by and with quiz show host and entertainer Hans Rosenthal. In 1973, the Senate of Berlin hired Hass as Official in Charge for the promotion of artists. Today he lives in Berlin and Florida.
Werner and Ilse Hass, early sixties
The Bertelsmann Club release of the Baccarola EP shown above.
Cover version of the Peter Kraus single from 1962 - the cover version of the cover version of the cover version, so to speak.
Pictures/sources: Harald Bluschke, Dietrich Heitz, Michael Jonas, Jürgen Koppelin, Henny de Leeuwe-Kleijngeld, Hermann "The German" Lembke, Klaus Link, Bernd Matheja, Thomas Meyer, Gerd Miller, Dieter Moll, Jan Reetze, Jörg Richard, Marianne Schmidt, Hartmut Schulla, Gerd Ziemke, Wolfgang Zschauer; Barry Cleveland: Creative Music Production; Covergalerie, Hamburger Abendblatt, Echoworld, Internet Movie Data Base, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Memoryradio, Opernpalais, Rock'n'Roll-Schallplattenforum [Home] [Joe Meek Portrait] [Complete Recordings] [Meek Compositions] [Goddard Compositions] [Triumph Story] [CD Discography] [Noten/Scores] [Telstar Cover Versions] [Meek in Germany] [Literature, Documentaries etc.] [Miscellaneous] [Links] [About] [Contact] [Sitemap] © 2006 Jan Reetze last update: Aug 19, 2010
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