Helmut Debus

Helmut Debus (born May 3, 1949 in Hartenrod ) is a Low German songwriter .

Life

Helmut Debus was born in Hessen and grew up in Brake . At home, High German was mainly spoken; he learned the Low German language while playing on the street. After an apprenticeship as a bookseller, various jobs followed, including as a port worker. Eventually he studied through secondary education .

Debus has been making music since the 1960s, initially as a drummer in the beat band The Madmen .

“It all started for me at the age of 15 [1964] - musically I mean. […] 'The Madmen' was the first beat band in Brake. For our parents and all the elders, the music we left out was completely incomprehensible. 'Jungle music' or ' Hottentot music' were still the tameest expressions for the music that was finally our music. [...] My rifle club drum felt what anger I had in me about family, church, tradition and home. […] [B] e 'Madmen' there was a time when flat was no longer an issue for me, it was too stupid for me. Low German - that was the 'old people', the home associations. That's what I wanted to get out of, out of the tightness. It wasn't until I started singing German myself that I realized what I had inside of me, a wonderfully poetic, musical, second language that had more to do with me than the other. "

In 1976 Debus' first long-playing record was released . Since then, numerous other albums and a DVD as well as a songbook have been released. In the beginning, the texts were written in collaboration with the poet Oswald Andrae . Allan Taylor is also the second guitarist on some of Debus' CDs. Debus toured through Germany (including the GDR ), Denmark , the Netherlands , England and Austria .

He was awarded the Bad Bevensen Prize in 1989 , the Lower Saxony Artist Scholarship in 1990, the City of Kappeln's Low German Literature Prize in 1999 and the Oldenburg Landscape Culture Prize in 2004.

Helmut Debus lives in Brake. He has two sons with his wife.

Discography

• 1976: Where ik came from
• 1977: Wat ik meen
• 1978: För all dat
• 1979: Kaamt tohoop
• 1980: In the flat country
• 1981: As een Strom
• 1982: Waterland
• 1983: Wohen
• 1985: Vullmaand
• 1988: morning floot
• 1991: Will Harten
• 1994: Afsiet vun Tiet
• 1997: Möven ropes up the wind
• 1999: Vullmaand & Morgenfloot (new edition of the two LPs of the same name on one CD)
• 2000: Twuschen Ankommen un Afscheed
• 2005: Steern and Strom
• 2009: Little bi night
• 2012: Dreihen un consecrated
• 2015: Liekut un anners rum

literature

• Helmut Debus, Peter K. Kirchhof (eds.): Mien plattdüütsch Singbook. Florian Noetzel Verlag, Wilhelmshaven 2005, ISBN 3-7959-0565-6

Web links

• Website about Helmut Debus (authorized)
• Report on Helmut Debus (Folker, December 2005) ( Memento from January 2, 2006 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Lit .: Debus, p. 5 ff.