Angele Durand Ja, ich bin die tolle Frau

Angèle Durand

The dress was secretly borrowed by her aunt, and Angèle Durand was barely fifteen when she sneaked into it for a youth competition in her hometown of Antwerp. The use had consequences, she landed on the second place, won with it a lady bicycle, and from the aunt it put slaps in the face because of the dress. That was incentive enough, the little one went on, wanted only one more thing: to sing. She already knew how this went from her family, because her grandmother was a well-known Wagner singer.

Angèle Durand was more into jazz songs and appeared on stage with Duke Ellington's Bye-bye Blues. Thus she was discovered for a revue, and incidentally she stood in front of the microphones of Flemish radio, for children's songs in which she sang songs that were actually written for boys. A boy has been lost to me,' says Angèle Durand today when she talks about the past. I may not miss all the memories,' for one thing she has learned in the process:'I have never said: I cannot do that'. The many small appearances at a young age were the best exercise for the big tasks that followed. From Radio Brussels she came to AFN and sang the current American hits up and down in the daily programme'What's new?

Shortly after the end of the war, she toured Europe for the first time. Duke Ellington became aware of her in Brussels in 1950 and engaged her for his tour of Western Europe. So she came to Germany, first stayed with Hessischer Rundfunk in Frankfurt and finally came to NWDR in Hamburg. In the end, as a Belgian, she needed a residence permit for her engagements, which had to be renewed every six weeks.

For her first recording in Germany, Angäle Durand took the train from Antwerp to Hamburg and a slow train to the recording studio in Reinbek in the summer of 1951. I've had enough time to read my text
to learn.' she remembers. The German language does not cause her any difficulties, the Flemish language of her homeland is not so far from it.

To the B-side of her first shellac record Angäle Durand comes by chance. When she recovers from her first recording in the NWDR canteen, she talks to Lotte Lenya, who is sitting at the next table. The Brecht interpreter and widow of composer Kurt Weill proposes a piece by her husband, the September song.

The first record, When Mademoiselle Kisses You, goes down well with the radio stations, the film'Under the Sky of Paris', in which the song is played, is the best promotion for it. The title runs so well that a French version of it is also recorded.

Angäle Durand receives a completely different tribute with her second record. The gypsy tango, a composition by Lotar Olias, is so well liked by those about whom she sings that the singer is named an honorary member of the gypsy tribe of Szimpecz:'In gratitude for the wonderful and so fitting gypsy song'. But also the film director Helmut Käutner and his main actor Hans Albers become aware of Angäle Durand through the title, she is engaged for the film adaptation of the Norbert Schultze operetta'Käpt'n Bay Bay'. At Hans Albers' side sings...