Who was/is Thomas Felder ? - CDs, Vinyl LPs, DVD and more
THOMAS FELDER
"Someone who doesn't care whether it's hip or not when it comes to songs, but whether you do it or not." (Christof Stählin)
On his first album 'Athomare Lieder' (1977) Thomas Felder set lyrics by Arne Bucharz to music, until a little later he continued his way alone. In 1985, the Swabian "Mundartist" (Christof Stählin) won the "Förderpreis der Liederbestenliste", awarded for the first time by Südwestfunk. At the award ceremony he was asked what he was planning to do in the near future. He now had to go back to his hometown Gönningen and look after his hens, was the famous answer of the down-to-earth musician, who, like so many others, had first played Dylan and Donovan songs and went through his Mey phase, wrote his first own songs in 1973. Thomas Felder - an excellent musician who plays piano, sitar, guitar, hurdy-gurdy and monochord - first sang in High German. His "Swabian Enlightenment" (Petr Pandula) came later, after a stay abroad in London in 1976. Since then he has performed most of his songs in dialect and is "close to the heart and understanding of the people" (Christof Stählin). The Swabian is a master of the quiet tones, but he can also do something different, as he showed in 1982 during the blockade of the rocket storage facility in Großengstingen, which the magazine 'FM folk-michel' reported on: "At the late hour Thomas Felder is the last to enter the stage at the peace concert in Grossengstingen. Previously, he had blocked the access to the nuclear bunker next door in his reference group for hours without violence, talked himself hoarse and was finally carried away by the police command. Thomas is one of the few artists who does not only arrive briefly for the cultural peace days on the occasion of the one-week blockade of the atom bunker, scatter their three minutes of peace theory into the audience and then leave again. Thomas is right in the middle of it, blocks with it and therefore enjoys a special quality of credibility with his audience."
The blockade brought charges of coercion against Thomas Felder and several hundred other sitting demonstrators. "I knew the procedure of the assembly line convictions in the district court of Münsingen and wanted to bring some variety into the monotonous everyday life of the judge Rainer. After the public prosecutor had read the order of sentence with barely audible mumbling, the judge asked me if I wanted to comment on what I had just heard. I answered with the sung wording of the same text. The combination of music and word had an effect: at the sound of the first notes, the judge left the hall slamming the door, but briefly stretched his head through a crack again and declared the trial to be interrupted. The public prosecutor listened to my lecture and instructed me and the numerous audience, this time clearly audible: 'Court language is German and not sung! The verdict was: guilty! An original probation was revoked and fields were sentenced to 25 daily rates of 15 DM plus court costs. In 1995, most of the blockade judgments were lifted and converted into statute-barred administrative offences. "I got 375 DM refunded."
www.thomas-felder.de
Extract from
Various - songwriter in Germany
Vol.2, For whom we sing (3-CD)
/various-songwriter-in-Germany-vol.2-for-who-who-we-sing-3-cd.html
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