Klaus Heuser

This article is about the musician and producer Klaus Heuser. Thomas Mann's lover of the same name is a main character in the novel Königsallee .

Klaus "Major" Heuser (2006)

Klaus "Major" Heuser (born January 27, 1957 in Leverkusen ) is a German musician and producer who became known as the guitarist and songwriter of the Cologne rock band BAP .

Career

Heuser's musical role models were the Rolling Stones with Keith Richards as well as Eric Clapton and Rory Gallagher .

In 1978 he lived in Aachen , where he met Wolfgang Niedecken , the head of the BAP group , after his concert in the Malteserkeller in Aachen . Starting with the second BAP LP, Heuser was a member of the band from 1980 to 1999 and, as a “Musical Director” taking into account contemporary international tastes, played a decisive role in their musical style. He wrote u. a. the music to the songs was long ago , woman I'm happy , you can do magic and everything em Lot .

He described the reasons for leaving BAP in an interview with the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung in July 2013 : At the time, he asked himself whether he would get the same BAP hits like Verdamp into old age “in some halls or marquees” wanted to play long ago . “The answer was: I only have one life, and I want to try something different.” After leaving BAP, he took two years of private classical guitar lessons with Hubert Käppel .

In 1981, Heuser and Wolf Maahn, among others, took on the name Neue Heimat I will build you a castle by Heintje in the style of the Neue Deutsche Welle . Neither Maahn nor Heuser were interested in continuing the project, and the band developed into Purple Schulz's backing band .

Heuser's trademark is a leather hat ; he wears it on medical advice after a skin cancer disease.

His nickname is derived from the character of Major Healey from the television series The Enchanting Jeannie : During a discussion about early evening television series from the USA, the question arose of the name of the main male character. When the name was finally found, Heuser was so amused by it that the major stuck with him from then on .

On February 17, 2006 the album Major & Suzan was released , which Heuser recorded together with the Berlin singer Susanne Werth .

At a talk show in the Bonner Harmonie in December 2008, he met the blues guitarist Richard Bargel . The spontaneous jam session between the two musicians was also the birth of the joint project Men in Blues . The first planned concert of the two musicians took place on December 12, 2009. Since then, the two have performed regularly together with a two-person backing band. On February 3rd, 2012 the joint CD of Klaus “Major” Heuser and Richard Bargel Men in Blues was released . After Richard Bargel suffered a sudden hearing loss in autumn 2012, further band activities had to be stopped.

Heuser then founded the Klaus Major Heuser Band named after him , which released their first album Men in Trouble in May 2013 . In addition to band members of the Men in Blues , the Cologne singer Thomas Heinen joined the band (according to Heuser, “the best band I've ever played in”). The band's second album is called 57 and was released in September 2014, the associated tour ran until 2015. In April 2016, the album What's up? , the accompanying tour was scheduled until 2017. The album And Now ?! followed at the end of August 2018 . , also followed by a tour.

Heuser also worked with Hubert Käppel on a joint project for a series of concerts and information about guitar music. The plans failed in 2013 because Heuser developed a nervous disease in the middle finger of his right hand that prevented him from playing the guitar at the level required for such an activity for the time being.

Private life

Heuser has been married since 1986. He lives in Cologne with his wife Marion, a former archaeologist . The couple has an adult son.

Web links

• Official website
• Website of the Klaus Major Heuser Band
• Website of the project by Klaus Heuser and Richard Bargel, 2009–2012
• Interview on deutsche-mugge.de (2012)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Malteserkeller: even after 50 years always up to date. Aachener Nachrichten v. October 23, 2007 Retrieved March 11, 2017
2. ^ Wieland Harms: The Unplugged Guitar Book. 20 of the most beautiful songs for acoustic guitar. Gerig Music, ISBN 3-87252-249-3 , pp. 62-67 ( Do kanns' zaubere ).
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} "Major" Heuser: BAP is "Verdamp long ago" , in: Online edition of the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, accessed on July 14, 2013.
4. ↑ Wolfgang Niedecken: For a moment , p. 258