Willy Michl

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Willy Michl at the Heimatsoundfestival in August 2015
Willy Michl in the Munich Lustspielhaus 2019

Willy Michl (born Wilhelm Karl Michl on July 9, 1950 in Munich ) is a German songwriter and a Munich original. The singer is known nationwide as a blues bard and Isarindianer . His spiritual stage name Sound of Thunder, which is registered in his identity card, is a sign of his solidarity with the indigenous peoples of the continents. Michl is considered to be the inventor of the musical genre "Bavarian blues". He has been marketing his records himself since 1980, as a musician and stage artist he has been managing his own right from the start of his career. Michl is an indie artist, since 1978 freelance without an industrial record deal, a German and English-speaking singer-songwriter, composer, lyricist, singer and guitarist, author, visual artist, actor and music producer.

biography

Willy Michl grew up in the center of Munich with his grandparents. From 1953 he lived in his parents' house in Munich-Trudering . In 1958 the family moved to the Giesing district near the Isar . From 1961 on, Willy Michl attended the Albert Einstein High School . Here he learned and played the violin and double bass, later he switched to the guitar and used it to accompany his singing.

His music is influenced by jazz greats like Louis Armstrong , Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman , but especially by rock 'n' roll stars like Bill Haley and Elvis Presley . In addition, Willy Michl inspired the Beatles , Rolling Stones , German stars such as Udo Jürgens and Drafi Deutscher , but also Barry McGuire and Bob Dylan in his early days. As a child, Willy Michl internalized American and English music that was broadcast on the AFN (American Forces Network) and was enthusiastic about beat music , rock 'n' roll, soul , jazz and blues . As a teenager and as a young adult he was a guest in various soul and jazz clubs run by the occupation soldiers in Munich until the 1980s.

At the end of the 1960s he served in the mountain troops of the Bundeswehr in the telecommunications training company 1/8 1.GD. After his military service in 1972 he married Eva Vera Rath, solo dancer and prima ballerina of the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz .

As an entertainer, he succeeded in gaining a first local regular audience. Since 1971 he has appeared in Munich scene bars. In 1974 he brought out his first record Blues Goes to Mountain . The recordings took place in the Union Studios Munich- Solln . The producer was Gerhard Mendelson . This is followed by Blues & Ballads in 1975 and Willy Michl LIVE in 1976 .

In 1978 Willy Michl dissolved his exclusive record deal by mutual agreement and produced his first indie record on his own label "Michl Records". The double album Ois is Blues was sold 30,000 times and made the songwriter famous. Willy Michl is considered the first German INDIE ( Independent - artist not marketed by an industry). 1983 followed the double LP "The Answer - Soul Rhythm & Blues".

As a singer-songwriter he has developed his own significance, he combined original blues music with the Bavarian mother tongue of his homeland, in his own unimitated style. Willy Michl became known as the “Bavarian blues singer” and later became famous.

In 1993 he married his second wife Cora-Mathilde Riehl. The former fashion saleswoman at Lily Farouche is the artist's muse and manager; the couple has always been together since they got married, Cora Michl accompanies the artist everywhere.

On his DP Ois is Blues he brings his song Isarflimmern , which today has cult status not only in Bavaria. The title of the record Ois is Blues became a catchphrase, and especially the song Isarflimmern über die Isar became an unofficial Munich anthem over the years; the song is known nationally and internationally. Willy Michl is not only with this, but also with his previous LPs, the originator and trendsetter of the music genre "Bavarian Blues", a style that is later referred to in the BR as alpine rock and has recently appeared under the title Heimatsound . Willy Michl's best-known song is the bobsleigh song , which was performed by Tim Toupet on a BBC TV program in London.

Willy Michl was a pioneer of some famous Bavarian artists such as B. Konstantin Wecker , Spider Murphy Gang , Georg Ringsgwandl and Haindling , but also Hubert von Goisern and others, a diverse music scene around Munich and in the entire Alpine region. Willy Michl and Wolfgang Ambros are seen as "veterans of alpine rock".

The singer Claudia Koreck performed with Willy Michl and Hans-Jürgen Buchner on June 3, 2015 at the presentation of the 2nd Heimatsound CD in the BR Funkhaus. Here the artists sang the song “Tell me where the flowers are” together. Willy Michl has been on the “Neverending Tour” for decades. He has given well over 5000 concerts since 1972. Since the millennium of 2000 the artist has performed about fifty times a year. Willy Michl is mainly a live and stage artist, his main quality and live career as a songwriter and blues singer was abruptly interrupted by the corona pandemic . He currently lives withdrawn with his wife in the shared apartment in the south of Munich. On July 9, 2020, Willy Michl appeared on the occasion of his 70th birthday in Till Hofmann # s "Flying Circus" in the courtyard of the Deutsches Museum as one of the first artists during the corona pandemic to perform in front of 200 open air spectators . The concert was broadcast live on the BR's live stream with 235,000 viewers.

plant

Most of all Willy Michl lyrics, especially “Ois is Blues” and “The Answer” - as well as all new songs not released on phonograms, originate from himself. The lyrics of the first three LPs were partly also written by Rudolph Bengert . The LP LIVE 76 also includes songs by Georg Ringsgwandl and Herbert Mühldorfer in the repertoire. The music of his songs is consistently composed only by himself. Michl is considered an excellent composer. The songs of the blues bard Willy Michl come from the world of a freedom seeker and are shaped by the experience of nature, but also the appearance of society in town and country.

Live performances by blues singer Willy Michl spontaneously creative, there is no set list . Willy Michl is an excellent guitarist who also offers a high-quality show musically as a performer. This is confirmed again and again by the press and media. In 1994 the Munich evening newspaper wrote : "Willy Michl, mercilessly honest, mercilessly crazy, mercilessly exhausting and mercilessly brilliant". In 1977 the BR gave him the title of "blues bard". Willy Michl brings blues songs and ballads , but also international hits. His talking blues are characterized by humor and social criticism, but he also has tragic and very serious topics. He always wears his self-designed clothes in Indian style at his performances and on special occasions he always has eagle feathers in his hair, at concerts usually seven feathers.

Willy Michl's most important topics are freedom, love and peace, as well as respect and honor for the earth and all beings. Michl also demands that animals and plants be recognized as sentient beings and treated accordingly. Since the beginning of his musical career he has been opposed to racism, xenophobia and injustice. At every concert he emphasizes: "We must not hurt one another, we have to love, respect and honor one another". Only that, he says, are the basic conditions for a life in peace, freedom and harmony.

With new songs like Der Seher , Indian Summer , Canoé , King Ludwig II and songs like The Grail , Phoenix , Rainbow Rider and many more, he opens up a progressive worldview that also results from indigenous worldviews.

In 1978 he received the golden pin from the Munich evening newspaper for his Bavarian blues and in 1982 he was awarded the Schwabing Art Prize. In 1983 he received the ORF Journalist Prize for his appearance at Kärnten International .

He had his first appearance as a TV film actor in 1987 in two episodes of Franz Xaver Bogner's Zur Freiheit . In it he sang the hymn Isarflimmern and his hit Bella Signorina at the time . In 2007 and 2008 he was seen in the episodes Schonzeit and Bull and Bear of the television series Der Bulle von Tölz as a school friend Walter Bruckner of Benno Berghammer ( Ottfried Fischer ).

Willy Michl has also been a writer since the mid-1980s. In 2000 his autobiography Traumwanderer ( Nymphenburger Verlag ) was published.

In 2013 Willy Michl presented his first vernissage as a visual artist in Munich- Schwabing in the Galerie Roucka with ISARINDIAN PAINTINGS . On November 13, 2014, a vernissage took place at the ACC Amberg, with ISARINDIAN PAINTINGS and LIVING OBJECTS and photographs, including his wife Cora. The exhibition lasted until January 2, 2015 and was noticed by the press and media.

In 2014 Willy Michl released three BEST OF WILLY MICHL CDs of original Willy Michl hits on his label "Michl Records" : BLUESINFUSION Vol.1 and Vol.2 as well as NEW BOOTLEGGER . These sound carriers are not available in the commercial music market on the usual distribution channels, but are only offered INDIE on the portal of Matopa Kunst und Musik GmbH .

In March 2017 Willy Michl was honored with a special prize at the first Bavarian Dialect Prize.

Willy Michl is also the director of his mother's EVA music publishing house.

With a successful crowdfunding campaign that ended in February 2018, Willy Michl partially financed the recordings for his new CD Steinzeitmann- Willy Michl Pur .

Discography

  • 1973: Blues Goes to Mountain
  • 1974: I could cry vor lauta Bluus (with Peter Jakobi and Blues & Ballads)
  • 1974: blues and ballads
  • 1975: Willy Michl Live
  • 1979: Ois is Blues (translation for non-Bavaria: Everything is Blues)
  • 1982: The answer - Bluesmann Live 1982
  • 1984: Bob driver song
  • 1988: Ois is Blues ′88 (revised new edition)
  • 1998: Bootlegger
  • 2007: Isarflimmern (reading from Traumwanderer - double CD)
  • 2008: whom they call WILLY MICHL
  • 2014: Bluesinfusion VOL.1 & VOL.2
  • 2014: Bootlegger 2014

Filmography

Publications

Exhibitions

  • 2014/2015: Amberger Congress Centrum - The other face - ISARINDIAN PAINTINGS

Web links

Commons : Willy Michl  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Catalog of the German National Library .
  2. ↑ 2015: Isarflimmern at the Heimatsound Festival 2015. Accessed on August 13, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Bettina Link: I am an Indian and I tell the truth. Münchner Merkur , April 24, 2009, accessed on March 27, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Michael Bartmann: Heissmann & Rassau and Willy Michl received awards. Bayerischer Rundfunk , March 20, 2017, accessed on August 22, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Crowdfunding campaign for Stone Age Man. November 16, 2017, accessed March 27, 2019 .
  6. ↑ DNB 355510839 .
  7. ↑ Homepage Willy Michl .
  8. ↑ DNB 351398988 .
  9. ↑ ISARINDIAN PAINTINGS. Retrieved February 29, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Michl, Willy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Michl, Wilhelm Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bavarian songwriter
DATE OF BIRTH July 9, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich