Who was/is Schobert & Black ? - CDs, Vinyl LPs, DVD and more

Schobert & Black

"Rare stroke of luck in the German chanson scene" ('Sing In')

Before Schobert & Black were a duo, they had been travelling the country separately for quite some time. Wolfgang 'Schobert' Schulz sang in the early sixties with Reinhard Mey and a changing third man as Les Trois Affamés (The Three Starved) English, French and Spanish folklore as well as self-tuned ballads by François Villon and poems by Georg von der Vring; he also joined Peter Rohland in several programs. Lothar 'Black' Lechleiter has also made folk music in various groups since the early sixties, including as a member of the Pontocs. In the summer of 1966 they appeared for the first time as Schobert & Black at Burg Waldeck. The connection proved to be - so 'Sing In' 1972 - a "rare stroke of luck in the German chanson scene, perhaps comparable only to finding the Insterburger. Because Schobert & Black are broadcasting on a similar wavelength, a wavelength where you do cultivated nonsense and blaspheme a lot." Often the two musicians are called in the same breath as idiots like Mike Kürger. But they were a long way from that. They renounced cheap corny talk, as Thomas Rothschild wrote in 'Liedermacher': "Rather they intoxicate themselves with the sound of words and are related to Hanns Dieter Hüsch and Franz Hohler, albeit perhaps less intellectually. With bass, drums, tuba, bassoon, oboe and piano, Schobert & Black liberated the chanson from the 'guitar ghetto'.

On her first two records 'Lästersongs und moralische Lieder' (1967) and 'Deutschland oder Was beißt mich da? (1968) "with the help of Fritz Graßhoff and our own ideas we blaspheme through the German lands" (LP cover). The collaboration with the painter and writer, who died in 1997, did not meet with approval everywhere. Many critics found his texts too antiquated. But they by no means missed reality. For Rothschild, Schobert & Black drew their humor "from the precise observation of everyday life, which is often distorted into a grotesque observation rather than a metaphysical absurdity.

"Thinking has always been a strain", it says in Living with Corpses and "But if they all shrink 'home' / Then he cannot be against it" in The Heater's Dream. And with the Graßhoff text 'Auszug aus dem kleinen Großdeutschen Nationalfriedhof' Schobert & Black took care of the many people who have rendered outstanding services to the people and the fatherland and deserve a place on this grove of honour, like the desk offender, whose murder was not remembered by a weapon but only by the red ink: "Even the pension, it was not denied him' / And above he is not accused either / Here he rests well / Here he rests well / On the Großdeutsche Nationalfriedhof.

Later Schobert & Black wrote their own songs or collaborated with lyricists such as Wolfgang Eickelberg, who wrote the bitter satire Die Reifeprüfung - from the 1974 LP 'Gut geht's uns', which was performed in the Talking Blues. In 1979, Schobert & Black, together with Schoberts wife Inga from the duo Inga & Wolf, also dedicated themselves to the songs of Vormärz 1848, after Hein & Oss, Dieter Süverkrüp and Zupfgeigenhansel, together with Schobert's wife Inga from the duo Inga & Wolf. Whereby on the LP '... because I am a subject' they dedicated themselves to the great abundance of satirical lyrics of that time.

In the mid-eighties the artistic paths of the Limerick virtuosos Schobert & Black separated. Schobert died in 1992 while recording a solo LP due to sudden heart failure. Black recently released a CD together with Pit Klein on the life and work of Fritz Graßhoff.


Extract from
Various - songwriter in Germany
Vol.1, For whom we sing (3-CD)
/various-songwriter-in-Germany-vol.1-for-who-who-we-sing-3-cd.html

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