Stefan Diestelmann

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Stefan Diestelmann (born January 29, 1949 in Munich ; † March 27, 2007 in Tutzing ) was a singer , guitarist , harmonica player , lyricist, composer and film producer . From 1961 to 1984 he lived in the GDR . His many years of practical experience, intensive preoccupation with the forms of expression in blues and jazz and joint appearances with blues musicians such as Louisiana Red , Memphis Slim , Alexis Korner and Phil Wiggins made him an accomplished blues musician.

Life

Stefan Diestelmann was born in 1949 to the actor couple Hildegard and Jochen Diestelmann . He dealt with the blues at an early age and taught himself his skills on a self-taught basis . In 1961, at the request of his parents, who both worked for DEFA , he and them moved to the GDR. At the age of twelve he received his first guitar from his parents and began to play, collected records and studied literature about the life and work of Afro-American blues interpreters. Stefan Diestelmann had his first appearance with the teddy bears. He then played in various amateur bands until Axel Stammberger brought him to his band Vai hu in 1975 . With Stammberger, however, he was unable to match his inclination for authentic, original blues. So in May 1977, after a brief interlude with the blues band Engerling , he founded his own band. The founding line-up of the Stefan Diestelmann Folk Blues Band included:

Dietrich Petzold had learned his trade from Klaus Lenz and Uschi Brüning before playing with Diestelmann. Rüdiger Phillipp also initially came to Vai hu from Uschi Brüning . Although the Stefan Diestelmann Folk Blues Band clearly differs from other bands such as Engerling, Monokel or Freygang due to their emphasis on the Afro-American blues musicians ( T-Bone Walker , Muddy Waters , BB King ) and stylistically (for example by not using drums) difference, it found great approval in the GDR blues scene . The closeness to the audience and his texts made Stefan Diestelmann increasingly dissatisfied with the GDR state power and led to performance bans in some GDR districts . On March 5, 1967, Stefan Diestelmann had already been sentenced to a suspended sentence for “ defamation of the state ” and so-called “preparation for an escape from the republic ”. His texts ( Der Alte und die Kneipe or Hof vom Prenzlauer Berg ) reflected everyday life and told of dilapidated houses, the coal man, pubs and drunkards, and did not fit into the official image of the GDR.

At the beginning of October 1977 he also appeared as part of a youth service of the opposition “Open Work” around Pastor Christoph Wonneberger in the Dresden vineyard community and in 1980 together with “Holly” Holwas at the blues mass in East Berlin's Resurrection Church .

Nevertheless, Stefan Diestelmann was given the opportunity to do radio productions, foreign guest appearances and appearances at official events, for example in the Berlin Palace of the Republic , where he was on stage with Memphis Slim on May 25, 1978. In 1978 his first LP was released by Amiga , on which guests Wolfgang Fiedler and Volker Schlott from the jazz rock band Fusion can be heard. A year later he appeared in Der Mann aus Colorado 2 for the first time on GDR television , and in 1981 Diestelmann played on the side of Dean Reed in the DEFA film Sing, Cowboy, sing a bartender. In 1984 Stefan Diestelmann was given the opportunity to perform in Hildesheim in the Federal Republic of Germany , albeit without the band . The "Blues King of the GDR" never returned to the GDR from this concert.

Since then he has lived on the Ammersee in Bavaria . In the Federal Republic of Germany he was unable to build on his successes in the GDR. In the mid-1990s he ended his musical career to found the Diestelfilm company. Diestelfilm produced presentation and documentary films.

Diestelmann died in 2007. His death was not known until the end of 2011 through an article by the journalist Steffen Könau. Könau continued his research on Diestelmann and made public in July 2016 that the GDR Ministry for State Security had been spying on the musician for years using the so-called "Diestel" operational identity check under registration number XV 7032/81.

Discography

Albums

  • 1978: Stefan Diestelmann Folk Blues Band ( Amiga )
  • 1980: Court music (Amiga)
  • 1984: Folk, Blues & Boogie (Amiga, only briefly available as MC)
  • 1985: Live (Jupiter Records)
  • 1990: review
  • 1990: Stefan Diestelmann & Roykey Wydh - On a word
  • 1990: Folk, Blues & Boogie (re-release of the 1984 album)
  • 1992: Ammersee - impressions one day
  • 1994: Mylights
  • 1996: Folk, Blues, Best

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Portrait from Deutsche-Mugge , accessed May 20, 2014.
  2. ↑ Steffen Könau: The silent death of Stefan D. , in: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung of December 2, 2011, accessed on January 21, 2012
  3. ↑ Dirk Moldt : Between hatred and hope. The blues masses 1979-1986. Series of publications by the Robert Havemann Archive, vol. 14. Robert Havemann Society , Berlin 2007. ISBN 978-3-938857-06-9 , pp. 160 ff.
  4. ↑ Stefan Diestelmann Palazzo di Prozzo 1984 , accessed 21 January 2012
  5. ↑ Steffen Könau: The silent death of Stefan D. , in: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung of December 2, 2011, accessed on January 21, 2012
  6. ↑ Steffen Könau: Blues King of the GDR died lonely in the West , in: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, July 16, 2016 (full-page newspaper article in the print edition), accessed on August 4, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Diestelmann, Stefan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German musician, lyricist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH January 29, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH March 27, 2007
Place of death Tutzing