Fritz Rau

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Fritz Rau (2006)

Fritz Rau (born March 9, 1930 in Pforzheim , Republic of Baden ; † August 19, 2013 in Kronberg im Taunus , Hesse ) was a German concert and tour organizer .

Life

Fritz Rau was born in Pforzheim as the son of an Ittersbach blacksmith . His parents died early, which is why he was taken in with relatives in Berlin from 1940. Later he attended the Eichendorff-Gymnasium in Ettlingen , where he was also the student representative, and then studied law at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg , funded by the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes . He completed his studies with the first state examination (at the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court ) and his practical training as a court trainee in Rhineland-Palatinate with the second state examination at the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of Justice. He also briefly worked as a lawyer in a law firm in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse . During his studies he was already involved in the jazz club Cave 54 in Heidelberg . While still a student, Rau married and had two children with his wife.

On December 2, 1955, he held his first major concert in the Heidelberg city hall with Albert Mangelsdorff , which, with 1,400 visitors, was well above the usual public interest in German jazz clubs. The concert agent and jazz promoter Horst Lippmann became aware of him and hired him as a "porter" for the tour series Jazz at the Philharmonic of the US impresario Norman Granz . In addition to his training, he continued to work as a tour leader. So he became the responsible concert organizer of the German Jazz Federation . In 1963 his friend Horst Lippmann offered him a collaboration and accepted him as a partner in his concert agency, which was now called "Lippmann + Rau". She became known through the organization of the American Folk Blues Festival , at which the blues greats such as Willie Dixon and Howlin 'Wolf, previously only celebrated in insider circles, performed. Out's job as tour director was also to keep the blues musicians away from hard alcohol. He banned a few fans who smuggled whiskey - Mick Jagger and Keith Richards , just before they formed the Rolling Stones , and Robert Plant . From the blues boom supported by the festival in England rock groups such as the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds , Cream and many others emerged; the tours of the Rolling Stones were organized from 1970 by Rau, who also became friends with Jagger. Rau developed new concert formats and organized the first open-air rock concerts in Germany.

Together with Horst Lippmann, Fritz Rau also founded and operated the record labels Scout and L + R ( L ippmann + R au). In 1989 “Lippmann + Rau” merged with Marcel Avram's “Mama Concerts” agency to form “Mama Concerts und Rau”. In 1998 the spin-off to "Fritz Rau GmbH" followed. Since 2001 Rau has worked as an independent producer and tour organizer.

Rau has worked with numerous music greats in pop culture , including the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix , Led Zeppelin , Joan Baez , Peter Maffay , Scorpions , Tina Turner , Michael Jackson , Charles Aznavour , Bob Dylan , Marlene Dietrich , Ella Fitzgerald , The Doors , The Les Humphries Singers , Miles Davis , Frank Zappa , Rory Gallagher , The Who , David Bowie , Freddie Mercury and Queen , Janis Joplin , Udo Lindenberg , Udo Jürgens , Gitte Hænning , Nana Mouskouri , Madonna , Prince , Eric Clapton , Rod Stewart , Simon & Garfunkel , Harry Belafonte , ABBA , Ton Steine ​​Scherben to Albert Mangelsdorff. He was also the organizer of Jethro Tull for many years and was close friends with their band leader Ian Anderson . In the beginning it was mainly musicians of jazz and blues music whose tours he organized, with the advent of the hippie movement, like the music producer Ertegün , he shifted his interest to rock and pop music. His energetic, quick-tempered manner earned him the nickname "Ayatollah Choleri". His legal training was a helpful means of asserting his interests in business conflicts.

In 1983, Rau, moved by Petra Kelly , supported the young party Die Grünen in their federal election campaign by organizing the Green Caterpillar . These were political events at which green speakers gave speeches and bands that were close to the peace movement provided the musical framework free of charge.

One day after the 1983 federal election , Fritz Rau resigned from the Green Party. The concert organizer later took the view that "it cannot be the task of artists to use their popularity and their skills as an irrelevant argument in the election campaign."

When Madonna went on a European tour in 1987 and made her only appearance in Germany in the Waldstadion in Frankfurt , Rau, as the organizer, in joint planning with the German Federal Railways, offered 20 special trains with 1000 seats each, which traveled to and from the concert venue from all over Germany. This campaign ran under the name “Rock'n'Rail”, and the railway placed a full-page advertisement in the Bild newspaper in advance sales across Germany . The Sportfeld train station in Frankfurt was temporarily renamed "Bahnhof Madonna". During the journey, a “Miss Madonna” vote was held among the fellow passengers on every train.

Fritz Rau promoted German-speaking rock musicians such as Udo Lindenberg and Peter Maffay. However , he refused to work with another commercially successful and controversial rock group with German lyrics, the Böhsen Onkelz . "I don't feel like doing a tour with the Böhsen Onkelz because I don't think that the Böhsen Onkelz have distanced themselves from their past, which is extremely worrying, since the earlier records eight to ten years ago", explained Fritz Rau in the TV program ARD -Kulturreport on January 31, 1993.

In his biography 50 Years Backstage - Memories of a Concert Organizer , published in 2005 , he took stock of a rich and fulfilled life in a humorous way. The book is dedicated to his late wife Hildegard and his long-term partner Horst Lippmann.

Rau appeared as a guest lecturer at music colleges and universities. From the summer semester 2007 he taught as an honorary professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Frankfurt am Main . He lived in a senior citizens' residence in Kronberg im Taunus . With the Lippmann + Rau music archive in Eisenach, the Lippmann + Rau Foundation preserves the memory of two well-deserved promoters . To mark the 50th anniversary of both the American Folk Blues Festival and the Rolling Stones in 2012, Rau met with the musician Biber Herrmann with a consisting of lectures and live music program, the beginning of 2013 under the title A plea for the Blues on a double CD was released. In 2012 he was also inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame together with Horst Lippmann .

Rau suffered from diabetes . A heart attack in 1994 caused him to undergo bypass surgery. Since a stroke in 1999, he suffered from impaired vision.

Fritz Rau had a friendship with the jazz pianist Oscar Peterson , which is why Rau called his son Andreas, born in 1958, Oscar; at the same time, Peterson was the godfather of Rau's son.

Quotes on Fritz Rau

  • "He's like a father to me." ( Udo Lindenberg )
  • "He is everybody's papa." ( Al Jarreau )
  • “Fritz is one of the legendary figures in German show business. Without him there would not have been these big hall concert tours with many artists "( Udo Jürgens )
  • "You are the godfather of us all. Rock'n'Rau Forever!" ( Mick Jagger )
  • “He never sleeps. He survives with beer, schnitzels and ring cake. "( Joan Baez )
  • “Fritz is absolutely filling the room. Fritz has a spontaneous, warm side. I also saw Fritz loudly. If he wanted to assert himself, then he was totally noticed. Not just argumentative. Physically too. When Fritz ran into a wall, it wobbled. "( Peter Maffay )
  • "Fritz Rau says: 'On asparagus / Should only people feast / They have a lot of money / On a numbered account!'" (Quote from the lyrics of the song Shall we take Ourselves Seriously? By Frank Zappa ).

Memberships

Awards

Fonts

  • Fritz Rau: 50 years backstage. Memories of a concert promoter. Preface by Udo Lindenberg . Palmyra, Heidelberg 2005, ISBN 3-930378-65-5
  • Fritz Rau: Concerts and festivals (pop, rock, jazz) , in: Hermann Rauhe , Christine Demmer (eds.): Kulturmanagement. Theory and practice of a professional art . De Gruyter, Berlin and New York 1997, pp. 243-253.
  • Fritz Rau: Concert management in popular music , in: Die Neue Gesellschaft 1985 (32), pp. 894–899.
  • Fritz Rau: I don't need roulette, I have my concerts , in: Albert Hoehner: The everyday madness of Rock'n'Roll . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1988, pp. 57-77.

literature

  • Kathrin Brigl, Siegfried Schmidt-Joos : Fritz Rau, accountant of dreams. Quadriga-Verlag Severin, Berlin 1985, 287 pp.
  • Kathrin Birgl. Chosen by the music. Europe's most important concert impresario should become a lawyer . In: The Parliament . 38th year 1988, No. 2, p. 13
  • Martin Schrüfer (Red.): Fritz Rau on the 75th special of the magazine Der Musikmarkt . Munich, vol. 47 (2005), issue 11

Web links

Commons : Fritz Rau  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Interviews

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Legendary concert promoter: Fritz Rau is dead. In: spiegel.de , accessed on August 20, 2013
  2. ^ After an interview at Alpha-Forum 1998 (web links)
  3. ↑ a b c d "Best luggage carrier in the world". In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , April 16, 2007
  4. ↑ a b c Fritz Rau: 50 Years Backstage - Memories of a Concert Organizer . Palmyra, Heidelberg 2005. p. 287
  5. ↑ Edmund Hartsch: Thanks for nothing . The official autobiography of the Böhsen Onkelz. BO Management, Frankfurt am Main, 8th edition, 2007. p. 210
  6. ↑ Rock'n'Rau Forever. In: Die Welt , March 9, 2010
  7. ^ Blues Festival Guide Online (Blues Foundation Announces 2012 Blues Hall of Fame Inductees). In: bluesfestivalguide.com. Retrieved January 4, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Cf. Achieving amazing things despite illness. In: Fränkische Nachrichten , April 26, 2007
  9. ↑ Who the rockers call "Papa". In: Rhein-Zeitung , September 3, 1999
  10. ^ Fritz Rau: 50 Years Backstage - Memories of a Concert Organizer . Palmyra, Heidelberg 2005, p. 288
  11. ^ Fritz Rau: 50 Years Backstage - Memories of a Concert Organizer . Palmyra, Heidelberg 2005, p. 183
  12. ↑ Frank Zappa: Should we take ourselves seriously? In: Zonx - Texte 1977–1994, p. 611. German by Carl Weissner. Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-86150-179-1
personal data
SURNAME Rau, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German concert and tour organizer
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Pforzheim , Germany
DATE OF DEATH 19th of August 2013
Place of death Kronberg , Germany