Wool Kriwanek
Wolfgang "Wolle" Kriwanek (born December 29, 1949 in Stuttgart-Stammheim ; † April 20, 2003 in Backnang ) was a Swabian musician who became known as a singer of blues and rock music with Swabian lyrics.
biography
Kriwanek was born in Stuttgart-Stammheim and grew up there. His first musical experiences date back to his youth. As his awakening experience is a mid-1960s televised concert by Mahalia Jackson , which he later described in the song Sing Hallelujah . Kriwanek was one of the first musicians in Germany to combine blues and rock music with dialect in general and Swabian in particular. He took part in youth competitions as early as the 1960s, but did not have musical success until the 1970s, when German-language rock music began to establish itself.
In 1969 he completed his Abitur at the business school in Stuttgart and then studied English and geography at the Pedagogical University in Ludwigsburg until 1972 . From 1972 to 1974 he taught at the special school for people with learning disabilities in Ditzingen , and then from 1974 to 1976 at what was then the Reutlingen University of Education (now the Department of Special Education at the Ludwigsburg University of Education ) to study education for people with learning disabilities and behavioral disorders. He passed the 2nd state examination in the period from 1976 to 1980 at the "Metter" school (school for people with learning disabilities) in Bietigheim-Bissingen . After that, due to the successful course of his musical career, he continued for a few years as a professional musician.
In the mid-1980s, Wolle Kriwanek returned to his original profession as a teacher, with a new residence in Backnang. Since 1986 he has been working at the Paulinenpflege Winnenden soil forest school , a special school for educational assistance in Winnenden .
For many years he was a juror at the youth festival as part of the street festival in Backnang and in the 1990s wrote a column about young musicians in the national newspaper “ Sonntag Aktuell ”. In 1996 he became the first chairman of the Rock Foundation Baden-Württemberg , based in Baden-Baden. This initiative resulted in the Baden-Württemberg Pop Academy in Mannheim in 2003 , Germany's first university where artists and music managers can take a well-founded degree.
He died unexpectedly in April 2003 of a rupture of an artery caused by a congenital cardiovascular weakness that had remained undetected for the rest of his life.
Kriwanek was married and had a son.
Musical career
His first attempts at the end of the 1960s to sing the blues with Swabian lyrics were largely ignored by the Stuttgart radio station SDR . Kriwaneks first success was his victory with the song Sunny in song contest on the Backnanger street party in 1971. In 1975, paved both his victory at the SDR contest "Best Songwriter of Baden-Württemberg" and the success of the German rock music of Udo Lindenberg the Swabia made his way into the mass media, for example to an appearance on the ZDF turntable, where he sang his title Lila Tilla , a mocking song about the color preferences of a lady underlaid by a ragtime piano , but in High German.
In several pieces Kriwanek combined Swabian texts with English expressions in an ambiguous way, e.g. B. on the 1976 single Badwanna Blues , which simply describes the traditional bath tub on the Saturday evening before the ARD sports show ("Then I feel so comfortable, from head to down to soul") or in the later title Reggae Di uff? .
Kriwanek's career since 1975 has been shaped by the collaboration with Paul Vincent , who wrote almost all of the songs together with Wolle Kriwanek and supported his Swabian singing with the slide guitar. In the late 1970s to early 1980s, the two released several LPs, mostly as Wolle Kriwanek & Schulz Bros. At that time, the song Stroßaboh was written , a musical hunt for the last tram on line 5, which leaves that evening without the singer . In an English version, the song reached 10th place in the UK sales hit parade.
An ironic comment on the space boom at that time, which u. a. In 1977, Kriwanek's song UFO , in which a hiker is surprised by a flying saucer, was expressed in the books by Erich von Däniken or in the film Uncanny Encounters of the Third Kind , as well as the self-image of the Swabians . The attempt to give the visitors from outer space information in standard German, they respond with the request “Man, guys, talk Swabian, how me ow!”. Kriwanek also used motifs from the Volksgut, including the winter songs Draußa em Wald , Es schneielet and En my Stuaba , of which he recorded Swabian blues-rock versions, or Enne Denne Dubbe Denne , which was inspired by a children's counting rhyme .
Kriwanek's texts mostly dealt with the everyday world of simple people and ironically described the dreams of petty bourgeoisie, such as the office worker who fantasizes in the song Babylon of a life as a pharaoh with boundless wealth and power, of the bank employee who counts money in the song Easy Rider distracts the dream of a Harley-Davidson , or of the arrogant driver of a Mercedes 500SE , who ultimately turns out to be a chauffeur in the so-called "PS waltz" I drive Daimler . In the early 1980s, Wolle Kriwanek was a frequent guest at Südwest 3 , u. a. at a performance together with Caterina Valente .
Even after he returned to teaching in the mid-1980s, he continued to perform as a musician. In addition to Kriwanek on vocals and guitar and long-time comrade Paul Vincent († 2016) on slide guitar, the Wolle Kriwanek Band also included Mick Brehmen († 2010) on bass, Dieter Stümpfl on drums and Uli Eisner on mixer.
For several sporting events, Wolle Kriwanek contributed the music, for example the title Ready, Steady, Go! for the 1986 European Athletics Championships in Stuttgart, a song for the Silver Arrows of Mercedes in Formula 1 , and the title comes Stuttgart! for VfB Stuttgart . His last work was a song about the German application of Stuttgart for the Olympic Games 2012.
The Wolle Kriwanek Band has continued to perform under the name Vincent Rocks since Kriwanek's death in 2003 .
Appreciation
On May 18, 2009, Wissmann Strasse in Stuttgart-Stammheim , where Wolle Kriwanek grew up, was renamed to Wolle-Kriwanek-Strasse in his honor .
Discography
Albums on LP or CD
- 1977: heads or tails ( Polydor )
- 1977: Swabian Trilogy (Polydor)
- 1980: Wolle Kriwanek & Schulz Bros. ( Phonogram )
- 1981: Let's fetz (Phonogram)
- 1982: Kriwanek & Vincent (Phonogram)
- 1983: Out of service ( Ariola )
- 1984: Schwabenrock (Best of ...) (Phonogram)
- 1988: So and not otherwise ( Bellaphon )
- 1992: Hot Wollé ( Bell Records )
- 1993: Bescht of ... live (Bell Records)
- 1995: Good entertainment (Bell Records)
- 2002: Sugar & Salt (Bell Records)
- 2003: Late harvest (Bell Records)
- 2003: Schwabenrock pur - The best of 28 years (cardboard slipcase with the five original albums since 1992; Bell Records)
Singles
- 1976: Badwanna Blues / Denn I Mog Di (Polydor)
- 1977: Lila Tilla / Mei Frau, the Dragon (Polydor)
- 1980: The Stroßaboh / UFO (Philips / Phonogram)
- 1980: Babylon / Enne denne dubbe denne (Philips / Phonogram)
- 1982: I'm just the Negro / Hey Joe (Vertigo / Phonogram) for them
- 1983: Women in Uniform / Come over (Ariola)
- 1984: Easy Rider / Out of service (Ariola)
- 1986: Ready Steady Go (under the project name Take Off , theme song for the European Athletics Championships) ( Teldec )
- 1995: Give your heart a kick (Bell Records)
- 1995: The Great Flood (Bell Records)
- 1996: Stuttgart is coming (Bell Records)
- 1998: Silver Arrow (under the project name Grip ) ( Intercord )
- 2003: Olympia - I have a dream (Bell Records)
- 2003: Give your heart a shot 2003 (Bell Records)
Awards
- 1967: Second prize in the SDR youth competition - best amateur band from Baden-Württemberg
- 1971: First prize in the singing competition at the Backnang street festival
- 1975: First prize in the SDR competition - best songwriter in Baden-Württemberg
- 2000: The Regionaut (today: Hans Peter Stihl Prize) 2000 of the Forum Region Stuttgart
Web links
- Official website ( requires Flash )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Schwobarocker and Regionaut , in Stuttgarter Zeitung , April 19, 2013, accessed on March 25, 2015
- ^ The way is clear for Wolle-Kriwanek-Straße ( Memento from May 7, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Stuttgarter Zeitung online, accessed May 4, 2009
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kriwanek, wool |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Kriwanek, Wolfgang (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German singer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 29, 1949 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Stuttgart-Stammheim |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 20, 2003 |
| Place of death | Backnang |