Harry Graf

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Singles

Banjo Bill   DE 12 December 8, 1956 (10 weeks)

Harry Graf (born January 4 before 1932, probably even before 1929, in Upper Bavaria ) is a German pop singer who recorded almost 100 songs in the second half of the 1950s.

Life

In 1960, Harry Graf stated that he was born on January 4, 1932, on the "Schlager-Tablett", a section in Bild am Sonntag . This made him - as is not uncommon for celebrities - younger than he actually was, because the other known life events do not fit this age.

The music-loving child did not initially meet with approval from the father, the owner of a Munich construction business , with his desire to learn instruments. The father, whose wife was an operetta singer and who had died giving birth to his daughter (Harry was two years old at the time), initially only let him sing in the church choir . After a while he gave in to his son's urging, so Harry learned to play the violin, guitar and bass.

Because of a serious war injury, the musically excellent trained singer was used to entertain the troops. He became an American prisoner of war . After his release, he swapped his valuable watch for a guitar and set out on a musical career. It all started with founding my own quartet . After winning a singing competition in Munich in 1948, however, he gave up because he was entitled to an engagement with the Heinz Jochner dance orchestra as a prize. Then he went into business again and headed a six-man band. With this sextet he toured continuously through Upper Bavaria and had many appearances in American leisure facilities, for example in the officers' club in the Munich House of Art . This made him known to the GIs , which is why he was often played on the occupation station AFN .

The singer with the dark baritone voice was on the light entertainment set record label pace committed where until the 1960s he einsang into nearly 100 hits. With Banjo Bill , recorded with the Ernst Jäger dance orchestra , he was charted at number 12 in 1956. Josef Niessen and his Nuremberg dance orchestra accompanied him on the B side of the single . In 1957 Graf tried to build on his success with the Belafonte world hit The Banana Boat Song , recorded with the choir and Lutz Dietmar with his orchestra, but he was unable to post another chart entry, not even with the one that was already circulating in two interpretations and adapted from the American Seven mountains, seven valleys , here in a duet with Maureen René. In terms of content, his hits often revolved around the Caribbean , South and Central America : In Cuba, the girls are brown , The Banana Boat Song , Under palm trees on the blue sea , Costarica , gin and rum , La Guitarra Brasiliana , El Paso .

His hobbies were in 1960: tennis , soccer and goldfish farming .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Günter Ehnert (Ed.): Hit balance sheet . German chart singles 1956-1980. Taurus Press, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-922542-24-7 , p. 88 .