Who was/is Fredl Fesl ? - CDs, Vinyl LPs, DVD and more
Fredl Fesl
"Disposable songs for own use" (Fredl Fesl)
"Actually, I'm very happy with myself. If I weren't so modest, I might even be a little proud of myself." This is the last sentence of Fredl Fesl's biography on his website. The Lower Bavarian singer, born in Grafenau on 7 July 1947, achieved his first successes not in the musical but in the sporting field: he twice became Upper Bavarian junior champion in weightlifting. Already as a boy, Fesl was encouraged by his father to "cultivate domestic music", and he learned his first guitar fingerings during his military service. The trained art blacksmith tried his hand at several jobs until - as Dieter Kerschkamp and Dietrich Lindau wrote in their 1981 book 'Die große Liedermacher' - his career as an artist began with a small repertoire: "... the 'Fensterstock-Hias', a 'Ritter Hadubrand', Bavarian-derbem, as Dieter Kerschkamp and Dietrich Lindau wrote in their 1981 book 'Die große Liedermacher'. But since he didn't have all the verses in his head, he started fooling around. That's another way a career can start."
His first LP 'Fredl Fesl', recorded in 1976 at the Fraunhofer Theater in Munich, helped him to his breakthrough: the first homemade local hit in Munich dialect. Five more albums followed. Fesl, who accompanies himself alternately with guitar, tuba, trumpet and piano, also describes his works as "Bavarian and melancholic songs", as well as the subtitle of his fourth album. Among the most famous titles are the Königsjodler and the Anlaß-Jodler represented here. Fredl Fesl's songs, mostly rooted in folk music, have extremely humorous and subtle lyrics. Dieter Kerschkamp and Dietrich Lindau say that the musician and singer cannot be labelled as a "stupid Gaudiburschen": "Because the Fesl has a good deal of self-irony and that kind of humour which is called 'Querdenkerei' or 'Linksdenkerei' in this country and which has made one (world) famous: Karl Valentin, near whom Fredl Fesl is immediately moved by too well-meaning people, but whom he cannot do justice to either. The bard is also aware of this: 'He's too tall for that - and I have a style of my own.'"
Despite his Parkinson's disease, which he has been suffering from since the mid-1990s, Fredl Fesl is still on the road with his songs, albeit to a lesser extent than in the past, and at every performance evening he goes "with the firm intention of bringing 'my best concert' to the stage. Sometimes it goes as if by itself, then it goes like before. 'The folks' tell me I don't notice anything, but I notice it's really hard for me.'" ('Süddeutsche Zeitung', 23.2.2004)
www.fredl-fesl.de
Extract from
Various - songwriter in Germany
Vol.4, For whom we sing (3-CD)
/various-songwriter-in-Germany-vol.4-for-who-who-we-sing-3-cd.html
Copyright © Bear Family Records®. Copying, also of extracts, or any other form of reproduction, including the adaptation into electronic data bases and copying onto any data mediums, in English or in any other language is permissible only and exclusively with the written consent of Bear Family Records® GmbH.