Peter Meisel

Peter Meisel (born June 22, 1935 in Berlin , † October 5, 2010 in Pinehurst , North Carolina , USA ) was a German music publisher and producer .

Meisel learned the profession of music publisher at the music publisher Hans Sikorski . Then, on the advice of his father Will , he got to know the American music business in New York from Jean Aberbach , whose Hill & Range publishing group was just preparing the young Elvis Presley to conquer the world of rock music . Together with his brother Thomas , he took over the management of the until then rather insignificant music publisher Edition Intro , which his father had bought for his sons . The first successful titles were Conny Froboess ' Midi-Midinette and Zwei kleine Italiener from the pen of the then completely unknown Christian Bruhn (composition) and Georg Buschor (lyricist). One of Peter Meisel's strengths was the constant search for talent, e.g. B. in youth competitions, so he discovered u. a. Manuela , Marianne Rosenberg and Drafi Deutscher or the South Tyrolean Giorgio Moroder .

His experiences in America flowed into the founding of the production company Hansa Musik Produktion in 1962 (from 1964 with its own label ), where Meisel first practiced the American way of working in the music industry in Germany. The first million seller Il Silenzio by Nini Rosso was followed by numerous German-language and international hits. Not least through his work as a juror in the talent shed of the then Südwestfunk , he was able to discover and promote artists such as Juliane Werding or Bernd Clüver who were to develop into reliable draft horses of "the Hansa". In the international sector were z. B. Amii Stewart , Viola Wills , Aneka or Co-Co , which Meisel launched as the head of Hansa London between 1978 and 1982.

Meisel's musical horizon, however, went far beyond Schlager and light entertainment: He was the partner and financial backbone of Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser when he founded the progressive label Ohr (Distribution Metronome ), where u. a. Works by Floh de Cologne , Tangerine Dream , Guru Guru or Amon Düül have been published, and Pilz (distribution BASF ) with artists such as Witthüser & Westrupp , Popol Vuh , Hölderlin and Wallenstein . Meisel produced four albums for Amon Düül .

In 1984 Peter Meisel retired from the music industry to take part in the Wendy's fast food chain in the USA . After the fall of the Berlin Wall , Meisel returned to his home in Berlin. There he discovered - again in a talent show, the co-initiated by Meisel broadcast Hats off of the ZDF  - The Prince and helped them to success. In the late 1990s, he and Lou Begas Mambo No. 5 yet another notable hit on the Hansa label.

Finally, Peter Meisel finally retired to the United States, where he died on October 5, 2010 of cancer.

Peter Meisel was u. a. married to Irmtrud "Trudy" Meisel (* May 23, 1936, † February 20, 2008 in Berlin), who was responsible for the worldwide buying and selling of copyrights , in her time one of the most successful publishing managers worldwide.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Klaus Eidam , Rudolf Schröder : The Hit Factory. Chronicle of a Berlin music publisher. Edition Intro Meisel GmbH, Berlin 2001. ISMN M-50066-230-3.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Obituary of the Meisel music publishers on Peter Meisel.
3. ↑ Personal communication from a long-time Hansa employee