Bruce Low

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Bruce Low and Sylvia Sands (1961)

Bruce Low (born March 26, 1913 in Paramaribo , Suriname , † March 3, 1990 in Munich ; actually Ernst Gottfried Bielke ) was a Dutch pop and gospel singer and actor .

Life

Bruce Low spent his childhood together with three sisters in South America , since his father Hermann Moritz Bielke (1881–1955) worked as a missionary for the Moravian Brethren in Suriname from 1909 . The mother Lydia geb. Reusch (1887–1956) was born in Hong Kong , her father came from Württemberg and was also a missionary. From 1921 Ernst Gottfried Bielke attended school in the Netherlands and played the tenor saxophone in the school jazz band . He was also a member of the local church choir. After graduating from high school in Zeist in 1932 , he went to study sports at the German University for Physical Education in Berlin . But an injury (torn ligament while doing trampoline gymnastics) made him refrain from studying physical education and instead began singing training in Berlin with the singing teacher Jacques Stückgold .

Bruce Low's actual artistic career only began after the war. For the Americans in the Netherlands he organized shows, hired bands, was a master of ceremonies and even performed old spirituals . Incidentally, he also did this for radio . Because of this he was hired to Vienna in 1949 for a show with African folk songs. He stayed in Vienna for a whole month, with English songs providing just enough income. His career really got off the ground when he was asked to sing some songs to a stage worker that he could understand, i.e. in German, and was heard by key people from the record industry who promptly signed him. From then on, his sonorous bass voice was used for western-style cowboy songs. A horse halter hangs on the wall , a cover version of Carson Robison's song There's a Bridle Hangin 'on the Wall , was the title of his breakthrough and greatest success. He sang titles such as Tobacco and Rum and Rocky Docky's Old House in several films . The latter, in the original This Ole House by Stuart Hamblen in 1954, was covered by Peter Kraus in 1982 . After an overwhelming success in the German translation by Marcel Prawy in the Vienna Volksoper Kiss me Kate, Prawy took on the Bernstein musical Wonderful Town , which was also premiered in the Wiener Volksoper. Here Bruce Low was successfully used as Bob Baker as a partner of Olive Moorefield in a leading role.

The emerging rock 'n' roll wave seemed to herald the end of his career. Bruce Low looked elsewhere and wrote articles for Jasmin magazine under the pseudonym Thomas Gallauner . At the beginning of the 1970s, his voice was suddenly in demand again, but this time he mainly interpreted partly newly created, partly traditional gospels. With songs such as Noah , Das Kartenspiel (cover version of the English-language country song The Deck of Cards by T. Texas Tyler) and Die Legende von Babylon (cover version of Rivers of Babylon ) he made it into the charts again, was invited to numerous television appearances and as a presenter committed to circus broadcasts . In the ZDF - Quiz Show The big prize , he appeared several times to the candidate with a specially written song to ask a riddle.

In 1976 Bruce Low took part in the German preliminary decision for the Eurovision Song Contest . With the title The Fair of Our Vanity , he came ninth out of twelve participants. Two years before his death, the tall, slim and always tanned man with the white hair published his memoirs under the title: There is a horse halter on the wall. The song of my life .

Bruce Low died after a long illness at the age of 76 in a Munich hospital.

Works

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Home your stars
  DE 21st 08/15/1962 (2 weeks)
Bells of home - songs we like to hear
  DE 24 09/15/1962 (1 week)
joker
  DE 17th 08/15/1974 (7 weeks)
The legend of Babylon
  DE 43 December 18, 1978 (1 week)
Singles
When the sun is out in Texas
  DE 3 March 24, 1956 (22 weeks)
And the wind is blowing
  DE 2 09/15/1956 (21 weeks)
Theo
  DE 12 06/29/1957 (8 weeks)
Harbor light
  DE 22nd 07/01/1961 (16 weeks)
Noah
  DE 5 09/13/1971 (26 weeks)
The card game
  DE 6th 04/15/1974 (28 weeks)
The legend of Babylon
  DE 6th 08/21/1978 (21 weeks)

Discography

Bruce Low sang the following hits:

  • There is a horse halter on the wall
  • So much wind and no sails
  • Red River Song
  • Light port ( Harbor Lights )
  • Farewell to Kingstontown
  • Polly Wolly Doodle
  • Noah
  • C'est si bon
  • Tobacco and rum
  • Do you hear his secret calling
  • The Missouri rushes quietly
  • Don't Cry Susan
  • Somewhere on strange streets
  • I know
  • Rocky Docky's old house (Polydor 49428A; after 5.1954)
  • Home your stars
  • The lost islands
  • The card game
  • The legend of Babylon (German version by Rivers of Babylon )
  • Sodom and Gomorrah
  • The old willow
  • The wind whistles around the corner (Polydor 49428B; after 5.1954)
  • A dog and a cat means: a dog and a cat
  • Far, far in the sierra
  • Pitch black eyes (Polydor 49244A; May 13, 1954)
  • Reiter ballad (Polydor 49244B; May 13, 1954)
  • Fernando's Cabaret
  • The coward of the century (German version by Coward of the County)

Filmography

literature

  • Bruce Low: There's a horse halter on the wall. The song of my life . Munich 1987.
  • Ingo Schiweck (Ed.): "Let yourself be surprised ..." Dutch entertainers in Germany after 1945 . Munster 2005.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from July 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Utrecht Archives, accessed on July 17, 2014  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.utrechtsarchiefnet.nl
  2. ^ [1] Newspaper article De Surinamer: nieuws- en advertentieblad 1-05-1921 , departure of the Bielke family from Paramaribo on April 27, 1921 to Amsterdam, Dutch, accessed on August 17, 2014
  3. ↑ spiegel.de: Died: Bruce Low article from March 12, 1990
  4. ↑ Charts DE
  5. ↑ fernsehserien.de: The journalist
personal data
SURNAME Low, Bruce
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bjelke, Gottfried Ernst (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch pop and gospel singer
DATE OF BIRTH March 26, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Paramaribo , Suriname
DATE OF DEATH March 3, 1990
Place of death Munich