Hans Hartz (singer)

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Hans Hartz (born October 22, 1943 in Lunden ; † November 30, 2002 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German singer and songwriter .

Life

Hartz grew up in Husum and attended the high school there, where his father was employed as a teacher. He also briefly attended upper secondary school there, but broke it off with secondary school leaving certificate. He then learned dental technology for two years, but broke off the apprenticeship on the advice of his teacher. Then he worked a. a. as a salesman in the "Husum department store", at times maintained a private kindergarten in Husum, but also worked on construction and went to sea. After studying social pedagogy , he began a musical career by performing in Hamburg as the singer of the group Tornados (predecessor of the group Lake ). His distinctive rough voice , which is strongly reminiscent of Joe Cocker , was unmistakable . His breakthrough came in 1982 with the title The white pigeons are tired . After the album Sturm followed the singles Nur Steine ​​Leben lang and in 1984 music from afar , which were composed and written by Christoph Busse . In total, the two released five albums between 1982 and 1987. The successor albums did not achieve the same success as the debut, so that he and his wife temporarily ran “Die Fledermaus”, a pub in Friedrichstadt .

In 1991 Hartz celebrated a great international success with Sail Away , which sold over 1.6 million records in Germany - not least thanks to the use of the song in television advertising for Beck’s beer. After Hartz fell out with the company, the company's marketing department decided to re-record the song with Joe Cocker in 1995 and use it in their commercials from then on.

In 2000 the attempt to organize a big indoor comeback tour failed. Advance ticket sales for a test concert in October 2000 at the Bonn Bridge Forum were already slow. Hartz's last appearances took place in front of a smaller audience in a club atmosphere. The last highlight of his career was his appearances as a ballad singer at the Störtebeker Festival in Ralswiek on Rügen in 2002. In the same year, Echt HARTZig , his last album with his last record company Allmusica Production , Hamburg, was released. In the same year Hans Hartz died of complications from lung cancer . Hans Hartz is buried in the main cemetery in Frankfurt am Main , Gewann XIV 9.

Trivia

Memorial plaque on the house where Hans Hartz was born

The titles Our country , when millionaires go to sleep and What remains are the politicians used for three episodes of the NDR TV series Schwarz Rot Gold from the 1980s .

On the first anniversary of his death in 2003, his record company released the album In Memory , which, in addition to his big hits such as The White Doves Are Tired and Sail Away with Wild Roses or Ice Age, contained material that had previously been unpublished. Christoph Busse then published a CD with unpublished archive material from his private collection under the title When Seagulls scream .

On May 12, 2013, a memorial plaque was unveiled on the building where he was born (today the Mühlenstraße 21 youth development center in Lunden) on the initiative of the Hans Hartz Circle of Friends .

Before that, it was on the outer wall of the Husumer Speicher cultural center , where the 30 cm × 30 cm brass plaque was not allowed to be permanently attached due to a veto by the monument authority . Therefore it was installed in the hallway on the first floor inside the building, where it could hardly attract any attention.

Discography (selection)

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Storm!
  DE 16 09/20/1982 (33 weeks)
Merciless!
  DE 12 04/11/1983 (14 weeks)
Dawn
  DE 33 03/19/1984 (7 weeks)
Neuland Suite
  DE 57 09/16/1985 (2 weeks)
Singles
The white pigeons are tired
  DE 11 10/18/1982 (24 weeks)
Only stones live long
  DE 50 03/28/1983 (8 weeks)
Sail Away
  DE 25th 11/25/1991 (10 weeks)
  • 1982: storm! (Single: The white doves are tired )
  • 1982: Storm (English edition of the album Sturm! - only for the US market)
  • 1983: Merciless! (Single: Only stones live long )
  • 1984: Dawn (Single: I'm Still Alive )
  • 1985: Neuland-Suite (film music for the ARD production of the same name; single: music from a distance ... Dacapos im Wind )
  • 1986: Free as the Wind - The Ballads
  • 1987: crazy about you
  • 1989: hold me tight
  • 1991: Catamaran (together with Bernd Kaczmarek)
  • 1991: Sail Away
  • 1993: North Sea Waves Are Rough (Maxi-Single)
  • 1995: Tides of Love (film music for the ZDF TV series)
  • 1998: No home
  • 1998: Information on the IPO of infas Holding AG - formerly Hunzinger Information AG , composers Hans Hartz and Wolfgang Bloch
  • 1999: madness blossoms
  • 2002: Really HARTZig
  • 2003: In Memory
  • 2003: When seagulls scream
  • 2010: The white pigeons are flying again

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g The Joe Cocker of the North ( Memento from June 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on boyens-medien.de
  2. ↑ Hans Hartz in conversation. Artist tells stories in songs on mz-web.de
  3. ↑ Names A – Z on frankfurter-hauptfriedhof.de
  4. ↑ hn: Hans Hartz memorial plaque unveiled in Lunden . In: Husumer Nachrichten, May 17, 2013
  5. ↑ Ulrike Lutz-Hötten: No space for Hans Hartz . In: Husumer Nachrichten, April 18, 2013
  6. ↑ Chart sources albums: DE
  7. ↑ Chart sources Singles: DE
personal data
SURNAME Hartz, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German singer and songwriter
DATE OF BIRTH October 22, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Lunden
DATE OF DEATH November 30, 2002
Place of death Frankfurt am Main