Guitars sound softly through the night (song)

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Guitars sound softly through the night is a hit song written in 1959 by the composer Horst Reipsch and the lyricist Erich Moderer.

history

The song was released in 1959 by the then GDR record label AMIGA and was at the same time the first great success for the Cottbus in Brandenburg pop singer Günter Geißler , whose original version was also published in the West by the Philips record company . At the same time, the Munich-based record company Ariola tried to get the release rights, but they wanted to produce the song with Greek singer Jimmy Makulis . The Greek hit troubadour was instantly successful and thus made a breakthrough among German pop audiences.

The hit in the cover version of Jimmy Makulis stayed in the top ten for 28 weeks and climbed to 4th place. In contrast, the original version published by Philips by his East German colleague Günter Geißler , who is less known on the West German side , was completely lost. Which was probably not least due to the much higher level of awareness of Jimmy Makulis and his more intensive media presence on the West German side.

But also for the composer of the hit, the clarinetist of the Berliner Rundfunk Horst Reipsch, the success of Jimmy Makulis had not entirely insignificant consequences. "I want to collect the royalties for this hit in hard currency," he says to himself, quickly switched from the eastern part of Berlin to the west and moved to Munich.

For the song itself, therefore, there were also negative consequences. Because of the departure of the composer and the great success of guitars sounding quietly through the night , especially on West German radio stations and on Radio Luxemburg , it was soon no longer allowed to be played or publicly performed on the East German side.

The name Fred Bertelmann is very often associated with this song. The pop singer had already celebrated his first and biggest record success with the audience in 1957 with The Laughing Vagabond . In 1959 he played the male lead in the Austrian hit film Guitars sound quietly through the night, directed by director Hans Deppe . The song of the same name did not appear in it at all (apart from the film title). It was not until many years later that Fred Bertelmann released another cover version of this successful hit of the 50s for the first time , which he produced in 1993 for his album Schütt Dein Herz bei mir aus .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Horst Reipsch . ddr-tanzmusik.de . June 11, 2014. Retrieved June 11, 2014.
  2. ↑ Erich Moderer . hitparade.ch . June 11, 2014. Retrieved June 11, 2014.
  3. ^ Günter Geissler . aelstertal.com . June 11, 2014. Retrieved June 11, 2014.
  4. ^ Günter Geissler . aelstertal.com . June 11, 2014. Retrieved June 11, 2014.
  5. ↑ Horst Dieter Czembor: Jimmy Makulis - Guitars sound quietly through the night , Bear Family Records - Made in Germany, 1996, CD booklet, p. 5
  6. ↑ Walter Eichenberg: Memories of Günter Geißler , September 2002, in the foreword of the CD I have the good mood in my luggage , AELSTERTAL Musik Hamburg-Leipzig 2002, LC10586
  7. ↑ Fred Bertelmann . June 11, 2014. Retrieved June 11, 2014.
  8. ↑ Fred Bertelmann . August 27, 2014. Retrieved August 27, 2014.