Lonnie

Lonnie (actually Klaus Heilbronner ) is a German singer and radio journalist .

Life

He grew up in the former American sector of Berlin . In the 1960s, Lonnie was the lead singer of the country band Berlin Ramblers , founded by American soldiers , the most important country band in the divided city. In 1967 and 1968 the band had a half-hour live broadcast every Saturday afternoon on the soldiers' television channel AFNTV . The shows resulted in a record deal (see discography). Her songs were also played on the radio and heard from director Rainer Werner Fassbinder . He used the Ramblers version of the Tommy Collins title High On A Hilltop as the musical leitmotif in his film Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss , also in the final scene. The film won the Golden Bear at the 1982 Berlinale .

Nationwide notoriety gained Lonnie 1985, however, with the song Angelika whose text to Angelika lower reaches , the spokeswoman for the Aktuelle Kamera , the main news program of television in the GDR , concerns and thereby addresses the German division:

Do you
love roses, do you drink wine and do you like to wear real jeans?
Do you sometimes listen to rock and evergreens all alone
in RIAS ?
Angelika, Angelika,
from TV in the GDR.
You seem close enough to touch
and yet you are so far away,
Angelika.
What does your executive file say?
Were you in the FDJ ?
Do you have secret contacts with the West?
Do you often fly with Aeroflot ?
Do plastics and elastics
really make your life easy?
And have you
achieved more than others in your caste ?
Do you cry sometimes and despair?
Are you looking for consolation and finding none?
Do you think when you say "freedom"
that we mean the same thing?

(Excerpt)

The single An eine Berlinerin , published the following year, metaphorically sings about the Berlin S-Bahn :

She is red-blonde and has gentle curves,
this well-rounded girl from Berlin.
For me there is no better one,
not in London, not in Stockholm, not in Vienna.

(Excerpt)

Politically it was that the song also names many S-Bahn stations that were in former East Berlin or the GDR : And we often see each other in Ostkreuz, Westkreuz, Pankow, Schöneberg, Grünau, Fürstenwalde, Tiergarten, Pichelsberg, Bernau , Bellevue, Friedenau, Neuenhagen, Werneuchen, Waidmannslust, Wittenau, Wilhelmshagen, Mönchmühle, Mahlsdorf, Charlottenburg, Südende, Hoppegarten, Königswusterhausen, Westend ... The S-Bahn lines in West Berlin were only operated by the Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1984 were handed over to the West Berlin Senate and have since been operated by the BVG on its behalf .

During this time Heilbronn was an editor at RIAS Berlin and in 1988 became head of the newly developed O-Ton news program RIAS Aktuell , which set new journalistic standards at the time. After the dissolution of the RIAS, he moved to Sweden , where he continues to work as a journalist and musically: Klaus "Lonnie" Heilbronner works for the German and English language programs of Radio Sweden International and is the lead singer of the country band Lonnie & The Lonesome Riders . He lives mostly in Stockholm .

Discography

with the Berlin Ramblers

Albums:

• 1967 Bonnie & Clyde (tip 633100)
• 1968 The Race Is On - Western & Country Music with the Berlin Ramblers (tip 633148)
• 1969 Country & Western Live Book - The Berlin Ramblers (double album Karussell 2652070)

solo

Singles:

• 1985 Angelika / 300 days a year (Gig 1001)
• 1986 To a Berliner / S-Capade (instrumental) (Gig 1002)

Web links

• Lonnie's band website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Lonnie & The Lonesome Riders - Sounds of America in Sweden , on lonnie.net
2. ↑ The Titan in the Titania Palace , on hank-williams.de
3. ↑ The Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss (1982) soundtracks , on imdb.com, accessed on April 29, 2020
4. ^ Memory Lane .. , on lonnie.net
5. ↑ Angelika from television , on youtube.com
6. ↑ To a Berliner - Lonnie , on youtube.com
7. ↑ Klaus Heilbronner , on sverigesradio.se, accessed on April 29, 2020