Bibi Johns

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Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
Bella Bimba (with Starlets, Comedien-Quartett , Adalbert Luczkowski )
  DE 2 05/01/1954 (26 weeks)
The gypsy band
  DE 1Template: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / NR1 link 07/04/1955 (26 weeks)
In the harbor of our dreams (with Fred Bertelmann)
  DE 12 December 01, 1956 (10 weeks)
Sometimes rain and sometimes sunshine
  DE 8th 07/20/1957 (11 weeks)
Bum-Budi-Bum, that can be dangerous (with John Ward)
  DE 37 05/06/1961 (2 weeks)

Bibi Johns (born January 21, 1929 in Arboga , Sweden ; real name Gun Birgit Johnson ) is a Swedish singer , actress , lyricist and painter .

Life

Bibi Johns grew up in Arboga. Her father Bertil Johnson ran a trucking business there. Even during her school days she performed as a singer under the name Gun Bertilson and won a local singing competition at the age of 13. After graduating from school, at the request of her parents, she attended the fashion craft school in Stockholm . In addition, she took singing lessons.

International career

Career in Sweden

As an 18-year-old she secretly applied to the group Vårat Gäng (“Our gang”), which she had met years before at a concert in her home town. With this group she toured the country, they sang and played clarinet and guitar until the group disbanded in 1948. During this time she had already taken on the stage name Bibbi Johnson . After a few smaller appearances, she completed her training at the fashion craft school in Stockholm. Then she joined the trio Yvonne Modin as a guitarist . Eventually she got into the Henrik Norin Band, Sweden's most successful band of their time. The group's pianist put her in touch with Heino Gaze , who put her in contact with a record company, so that her first record was released.

Career in america

As a child, Johns had already expressed the desire to travel to America and she decided to emigrate there at the age of 22. With the support of her relatives living in the States, she came by ship to New York on December 4, 1951, where she received a recording contract with RCA Records in April 1952 . Six English-language titles were published, including The Night Is Filled With Echoes / Someone To Kiss Your Tears Away , and numerous appearances in renowned nightclubs followed. In April 1953 she won the radio u. TV competition Chance of a Lifetime . Then she commuted several times between Europe and the USA.

Career in England

In the early 1970s, Johns moved to the British record label MAM Records , where they released some English-language recordings. At the BBC she worked for 13 episodes as a singer and presenter on the Rolf Harris show. In 1971 she went on tour with Tom Jones .

Career in Germany

broadcast

In May 1951 she made her debut in Germany as a soloist in the SDR entertainment orchestra in Stuttgart. In October 1951 she sang during the "Light Music Week". After that, she continued to perform with Erwin Lehn's Südfunk-Tanzorchester in Stuttgart at live broadcasters' events. For WDR she sang poems by Christian Morgenstern.

Up until the 1980s, numerous radio recordings were made, including for Süddeutscher Rundfunk, Südwestfunk, Westdeutscher Rundfunk and Radio Zurich in various languages ​​with the broadcasters' major orchestras under the direction of Heinz Kiessling , Erwin Lehn and Paul Kuhn . On her 70th birthday in 1999, 24 of these recordings with the arrangements by Peter Jacques , Rob Pronk , Peter Herbolzheimer , Heinz Kiessling and Dieter Reith from this radio repertoire were released on CD for the first time under the title Maybe for a lifetime . Many of the lyrics come from her pen under her pseudonyms "Johnny Carlson" or "Ina Dosso".

Records

After her first successes in America, Johns visited her father in Sweden in June 1953 on the occasion of his 50th birthday. During this visit she met Electrola music producer Nils Nobach in the studio , who invited her to Germany for test recordings. Bella Bimba (EG 8020, German text by Kurt Feltz ) was recorded for the first time in German on October 26, 1953 . The song made it into the charts straight away and is now one of the evergreens of German hits. The title "Die Gypsy-Band" reached number one in the German charts in 1955. Many other solo recordings followed, such as Zwei Herzen im Mai , Gilli Gilli Oxenpfeffer Katzenellenbogen in Tyrol and also duets for Electrola with Angéle Durand and Fred Bertelmann .

In 1957 she moved to Polydor , where she released titles such as But nachts im der Bar und Bachelors you have to set traps as a soloist, but also duet recordings with Peter Alexander ( We see us again ; 1958) and Bill Ramsey . In 1958 she was featured in Bravo in the series Stars of Today , where she publicly criticized a song text by Kurt Feltz. The successful author and producer then temporarily stopped working with her; only in 1961 did she return to Feltz production.

In the early 1960s Bibi Johns was back in Sweden with Leka med elden (Swedish version of Brian Hyland's Ginny come lately ), Bröllopet ( The Wedding ) and their super hit Bibis Bossa Nova (21 weeks on the Swedish radio charts Svensktoppen , three of them Weeks in first place) very successfully.

In her entire career - as is usually the case with most stars of the time - not a single LP or concept album was produced with her. Only two best-of albums have been released in Sweden and Germany. The album Kristallen den fina - Swedish Folksongs - Swedish folk songs was only released in 2013 and contains archive recordings from 1972. According to Johns, it will be their last album.

Movie

After her first film in Sweden in 1953 ( Flicka med Melodi ), she mainly shot only in Germany. From that time on she also had her permanent residence in Germany and became a star of the 1950s. By the early 1960s, several contemporary music and entertainment films were made alongside Peter Alexander , Harald Juhnke , Karlheinz Böhm and others. v. a. In the film "Wenn Frauen Schwindeln" she played a double role for the first time alongside Erik Schumann and Gustav Knuth .

watch TV

In 1956, Johns took part in the German preliminary decision for the first Eurovision Song Contest , then still Grand Prix d'Eurovision de la Chanson . In 1963 and 1964 the SDR produced the personality show Do you know Miss Johns? . In 1966 she took part in the preliminary round of the German Schlager Festival in Baden-Baden with her title Schade drum . In the same year she appeared several times for CBS in the music series "Continental Showcase". In 1970 she was part of the Rolf Harris show for the BBC and ZDF. There she sang as a soloist and with duet partners and took over the part of the German moderation. In 1983 she was the host of the Swedish preliminary round for the Eurovision Song Contest. In 1990 she presented the ZDF program Ostseemelodie on the "Traumschiff" Berlin and at many Nordic stations on land. As a popular musical representative of the golden fifties , she was seen and heard in numerous nostalgia shows by entertainers such as Lou van Burg and Peter Frankenfeld .

stage

Two of her own stage shows as a producer and entertainer took her to the people's parks in her Swedish homeland. In 1970 she took on the female lead in the German-language premiere of the musical Das Schlüssel-Karussell ( Promises, Promises ) at the Theater des Westens in Berlin .

Private

Bibi Johns was married twice: in the 1950s briefly with an American, from 1960 to 1962 with director Michael Hausthar . She then lived for a few years with the pianist Peter Jacques , with whom she worked in the musical Das Schlüssel-Karussell . From 1974 to around 1990 the composer Rob Pronk was her partner. From 1997 to 2010 she lived with the pianist Alex Racic. She has lived in Pullach / Upper Bavaria since the mid-1960s .

painting

By chance, Johns came into contact with painting in the mid-1970s. She attended courses, took private lessons and presented her subtle photo (sur) realistic pictures and the like. a. in Munich, Cologne, Baden-Baden, Bad Homburg, Hanover and Stuttgart.

social commitment

In an advertisement against the wearing of animal fur in 2014, Johns got involved in the organization PETA Germany eV in the department PETA50Plus. She supports Gut Aiderbichl in Iffeldorf with an animal sponsorship .

Discography

Albums (selection)

  • 1992: Bella Bimba ( Bear Family Records , BCD 15649)
  • 1992: Two Hearts in May (Bear Family Records, BCD 15697)
  • 1994: But at night in the bar (Bear Family Records, BCD 15819)
  • 1999: How mills turn in the wind (Bear Family Records, BCD 16213)
  • 1999: Maybe for a Lifetime (Bear Family Records, BCD 16316)
  • 2013: Kristallen den fina - Swedish Folksongs - Swedish folk songs (Bella Musica, BM314769)

Success title

  • 1953: Bella Bimba
  • 1955: The Gipsy band
  • 1955: I want to dance at your wedding (with Paul Kuhn)
  • 1955: Two hearts in May
  • 1956: In the harbor of our dreams
  • 1957: But at night in the bar
  • 1957: Sometimes rain and sometimes sunshine
  • 1960: Two lovers in Paris
  • 1961: That can be dangerous (Bum-budi-bum) (with John Ward)
  • 1961: You have to trap bachelors

Filmography

movie theater

Television (selection)

  • 1956: Grand Prix Eurovision 1956 - Schlager & Chansons
  • 1962: Hotel Victoria
  • 1962 + 1964: Music from Studio B
  • 1964 + 1965: Do you know Miss Johns? (own personality show)
  • 1965: Hello - Mr. Moss (female lead in a musical, staged for television)
  • 1966: Continental Showcase (European show series for US television, several episodes)
  • 1970 + 1971: The Rolf Harris Show (Co-production by BBC and ZDF)
  • 1975–1984: Zum Blauen Bock (several episodes)
  • 1975–1978: 8 x 1 in notes (several episodes as a singer and lyricist)
  • 1983: Melodifestivalen 1983 (Swedish preliminary decision for the Eurovision Song Contest)
  • 1983–1987: One will win (several episodes)
  • 2003: rooms available

swell

  1. ↑ Jörg Amtage, Christian Müller All hits from Germany's charts 1954–2003 Pro Business 2003, 1st volume, p. 308
  2. ↑ http://bibijohns.de/
  3. ↑ range biography of the artists website. Retrieved June 24, 2020 .
  4. ↑ range biography of the artists website. Retrieved June 24, 2020 .
  5. ↑ https://www.discogs.com/de/search/?type=all&artist=bibi+johns&label=mam
  6. ↑ range biography of the artists website. Retrieved June 24, 2020 .
  7. ↑ range biography of the artists website. Retrieved June 24, 2020 .
  8. ↑ https://www.bear-family.de/johns-bibi/
  9. ↑ https://www.discogs.com/de/search/?type=all&artist=bibi+johns&label=electrola
  10. ↑ https://www.discogs.com/de/search/?type=all&artist=bibi+johns&label=polydor
  11. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7OqNahLbUc
  12. ↑ https://www.discogs.com/Bibi-Johns-Bröllopet/release/10816934
  13. ↑ https://www.discogs.com/Bibi-Johns-Aber-Nachts-In-Der-Bar/release/4123977
  14. ↑ Schlager singer Bibi Johns celebrates her 90th birthday - you can't tell by looking at her. April 1, 2019, accessed May 23, 2020 .
  15. ↑ area Filmography by the artists website. Retrieved June 24, 2020 .
  16. ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0403749/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm
  17. ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1925215/?ref_=tt_ep_nx
  18. ↑ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0424288/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
  19. ↑ range biography of the artists website. Retrieved June 24, 2020 .
  20. ↑ range biography of the artists website. Retrieved June 24, 2020 .
  21. ↑ https://magazin-forum.de/de/node/16780
  22. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vgtTSUPk-o
  23. ↑ https://peta50plus.de/bibi-johns-peta- Anzeige

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Johns, Bibi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Johnson, Gun Birgit (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish pop singer and actress
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Arboga , Sweden