Court blues band
The Hof-Blues-Band is a German blues band . The band, which played an important role in the East German blues scene in the 1970s and 1980s, today consists of the duo Günter Hofer and Jochen Lorentz.
Band history
In 1966 Günter Ulle Hofer and Jochen Lorentz founded one of the first rhythm and blues bands in the GDR and called the band b-club66 . They had already played together in the beat band Klubkapelle Birkenwerder . The founding line-up of b-club66 also included the drummer Holger Stühmeier, the guitarist Thomas Robinson and the bassist Josef Lizzio. The line-up of this amateur band changed several times. Musicians who later played a leading role in the rock and jazz scene in the GDR played at b-club66 . These included Jörg Speiche Schütze, who later became the monocle bassist, Eberhard Klunker, who now plays for Windminister , and Christoph Niemann , who founded the jazz formation FEZ in 1974 with Conny Bauer .
1977, when the blues prevailed in the GDR and found a numerically large, predominantly young audience, the band renamed itself the Hof-Blues-Band. The band stuck to the line-up and continued to cover exclusively the “western” idols of their fans. It was not until 1978 that a three-person line-up, Hofer and Lorentz brought the musician and lyricist Michael Sellin into the band and the first own titles were written, that the Hof-Blues-Band was able to develop an independent profile. Characteristic of this style were the German-language, sometimes provocative texts, presented in several voices and oriented towards folk blues . Sellin's texts increasingly led to confrontations with the GDR cultural authorities and culminated in temporary performance bans . In the early 1980s, Sellin was finally banned from performing and he was banned from publishing further texts. The band then worked with the lyricist Jürgen Rennert, and Sellin left the Hof-Blues-Band.
From then on the Hof-Blues-Band continued to play as a duo. All- rounder Ulle Hofer provided the powerful sound, as he played guitar, drums and the blues harp at the same time. In connection with the piano playing by Lorentz, the sound of the court blues band, which is still typical today, was created. The duo was temporarily supplemented by guest musicians such as trombonist Sebastian Beutel and the Freygang bassist Kay Lutter, who now plays with In Extremo . Although the band never got the opportunity to make records in the GDR, their popularity grew in the 1980s. This was ensured, among other things, by participating in the Rock for Peace Festival (1983, 1984 and 1986), performing in the supporting program of the American Folk Blues Festival (1985 and 1986) and touring together with actors Jürgen Frohriep and Monika Plöttner as part of the Lyrik - Jazz - Prosa series of events (1984, 1985 and 1986). A special highlight in the band's history was accompanying John Mayall on his GDR tour in 1987.
The court blues band, which continues to give concerts today, has remained an amateur band. Hofer works as a sworn expert and Lorentz is a general practitioner with his own practice. The band's repertoire today includes many new titles, the lyrics of which are reminiscent of the "heyday" of the GDR blues scene.
Discography
- 2001: Man, I'm happy
- 2003: Vorwende - Nachwende (double CD)
- 2006: All the best
See also
literature
- Michael Rauhut, Thomas Kochan: Bye, Bye Lübben City . Schwarzkopf and Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89602-602-X .