Various - 1000 Nadelstiche Vol.01, Amerikaner & Briten singen deutsch (CD)

1-CD mit 28-page booklet, 31 tracks. Playing time approx. 80 Mns.

"Wait and see," that's how Dusty Springfield sounded back in 1964.

Apart from the fact that for a long time hardly anyone could remember the great singer's Germanic songs, she unintentionally put into words the state of mind of many record collectors. Especially from those who hunt rare single vinyl, on which Anglo-American interpreters of the 50s, 60s and 70s tried their hand at "huppsche Frauleins" or "grunen Waldern".

Because since a few years these effusions in German language have become real racers on the collector's market. Prices, still at a relatively moderate level in the 80s, exploded. The fact that only in 1999 the Merseybeats single Nur unsere Liebe zählt für schlappe 1005 (e i n t a u s e n d u n n d fünf f) Mark was awarded in an auction is an indication of this; also Roy Orbison's tear-driving mom, My Girl from the Temptations, Take My Heart ("go enlä-häng the Schtresse" / The Sorrows), Marvin Gaye's How Beautiful That Is or In the Evening on the Heath from the Everly Brothers loosely achieve prices in the (high) three-digit range. If they are ever offered in an acceptable condition.

About 30 to 35 years ago everything was a little different. In the record departments of the relevant electronics stores or department stores, these singles consistently used moss on the shelves: Even the most popular composers such as the Searchers (a thousand needles), the Spencer Davis Group (Det was in Schöneberg), Helen Shapiro (I choose my groom alone), Johnny Cash (Who knows the way?) or Gene Pitney (stay with me) mutated into dust-catching shopkeepers in their German infancy.

Not to mention real Nobodys like Benny alias Paul Murphy (Michael, Marc and Christian), the Liverpool Beats (Memphis Tennessee) or the Flamingos (Mein Beatle Baby): They and many others were about as popular as an outdoor pool in February.

As a great community of suffering, established stars and struggling one-day flies then found themselves together in the nationwide Grabbelkisten - with the infamous Remittenden stamp on the paper envelope. But even for the dumping price of just ten tired pennies, cracks and small cattle kept their remaining stock subscription; rock 'n' roll, country, soul and other-what fans didn't even touch these foreign bodies with pointed fingers. You from Manfred Mann? Brian Hyland's time was beautiful? That's great from the necks of the swinging blue jeans? Meaningless tears dripped from Paul Anka? Or even baby, baby, where's our love from the soulful Supremes? And who would want to be entangled in a discussion about the question "Am I right?" by the learned curler The Honeycombs? Nah, thanks, I'd rather not.

Thus fate took its course more than three decades ago. The orphaned sound carriers - anyway only produced in small editions exclusively for the German-speaking countries - remained virtually unsaleable, were therefore disposed of in the shredder and thus became the sounding antiques of tomorrow or today.

Around the mid-1950s, the record industry had made its first, still timid, efforts to target US and UK interpreters for the German market, which was still a high sales market. Singers like the American Bill Hayes or the Anglo-blackbird Vera Lynn gave the pioneers, and already a short time later countless followers trotted behind.

From the middle of the 60's this part of pop music, which has been left behind to this day, experienced its heyday. Thanks to enormous promotion efforts (and the real popularity of some artists) it even hit the mark: If you laugh, laugh the luck, Sally Sunshine (here represented as LP version with the Shadows) by Cliff Richard, Connie Francis' Beautiful Foreign Man, Pat Boones Baby Sonnenschein or Santo Domingo by Wanda Jackson (among others) made the entry into the German hit lists - more than a flash in the pan, measured by the amount of collective output, however, this was hardly.

When in the late 60s and early 70s the style of international pop music changed dramatically, the German-speaking attempts of Anglo-American interpreters became noticeably less. That a title like Ganz allein von den Beach Boys, which had remained unreleased for a long time, appeared unexpectedly on an LP compilation was the rare exception.

Generally applies: Despite a Phil Collins, who surprised only in the late autumn of 1999 with a whole Fuder of such titles on a CD and despite well-known stars such as Peter Gabriel, Nazareth, Helen Schneider, David Bowie or Frank Zappa (who all diletted now and then in our language) - the topic is discarded music history.

But the fact that over the years several hundreds (!) of British and American artists had maltreated themselves with the umlaut in a rade-breaking manner remained largely unknown. In the book '1000 Nadelstiche', which is published parallel to this beginner CD by Bear Family, they are listed comprehensively for the first time - with biographies, detailed discographies and high-quality colour illustrations of the sometimes extremely rare picture covers.

There is also room for the copywriters of the sometimes hilarious German omissions. Although these intrepid utility lyricists sometimes stuck hard to the original form (Kansas City for Brenda Lee or Downtown for Petula Clark, for example), they mostly created daring poems that have lost nothing of their originality to this day. For example, if Sandie Shaw suddenly had to make a hoopoe out of her Puppet On A String in May, then hardly an eye remained dry or a wallpaper on the wall. Also Dave Colman, former guitarist in the service of Casey Jones & The Governors, was allowed to design freely: "He is like a Hercules / Big and strong / You have to see Quinn the Eskimo / A card costs one Mark! Alaska Quinn - Bob Dylan in a different way.

The opening song of this CD, which is as brilliant as it is memorable, compresses 46 seconds in 1 minute, even if everything was possible in terms of lyrics. Toni Cavanaugh (ex-member of the Jets, who brought the beat to Hamburg in 1960) presents under Starkstrom a Hummeltwist, which astonishes at the meanwhile legendary rage of the soccer coach Giovanni Ich habe fertig! Trapattoni remembered.

But whether (involuntarily) funny or not: This CD taps with 31 acoustic examples appetisingly what the book '1000 Nadelstiche' optically accomplishes - the contemplation of an almost forgotten or even hushed up marginal phenomenon of pop and pop music in Germany of the 50s to 70s.

And in times when the term 'cult' is known to be used in an inflationary manner, the songs presented here would always have the best chances of being sorted in this way.

Because the '1000 needlesticks' - they still sting wonderfully today.

BERND MATHEJA,