Who was/is Bettina Wegner ? - CDs, Vinyl LPs, DVD and more
Bettina Wegner
Bettina Wegner, born 1947 in Berlin, studied at the Schauspielschule Berlin from 1966 to 1968 after training as a librarian. Already in 1965 she had taken part in a competition of young talents, sang in the youth club of the Volksbühne, in the poetry club Pankow and in 1966/67 in the Hootenanny-/Oktoberklub. She began singing the chansons of other authors, but soon found her own songs and her unmistakable style. Their trademarks became simplicity and absolute honesty. When the Oktoberklub let itself be integrated and instrumentalized by the FDJ, she left him.
At the age of 18 Bettina Wegner wanted to become a member of the SED, but her application was rejected because she was a Beatles fan, which at that time was considered a sign of immaturity. A key experience for her was the invasion of the CSSR by the Warsaw Treaty states, against which she protested with leaflets. She was exmatriculated from acting school and sentenced to 16 months probation. Her conclusion was, "This can't be socialism." From 1968 to 1970, she worked at the Elektro-Apparate-Werke (EAW) in Berlin to prove her worth in production. From 1970 to 1972 she was a librarian. After training as a singer at the Central Studio for Entertainment Arts in 1972/73, she became a freelance artist and performed her own songs and lyrics. The writer Ulrich Plenzdorf wrote about her: "What does she need most ...? Stamina. That her songs are right. That she won't let anything be imposed on her own self. Happiness. And a nice long trip halfway around the world, with fifty and more gigs."
In addition to her own programmes, Bettina Wegner moderated the series of events 'Eintopp' at the Haus der jungen Talente in Berlin (1973 to 1975) and 'Kramladen' in Berlin-Weißensee (1975/76), in which many critical artists appeared and very open discussions took place. Both series of events were finally banned by the state bodies, but they showed "how with commitment, civil courage and courage it was possible to make the rigid cultural-political conditions dance for a short time" (Peter Will). However, Bettina Wegner's room for manoeuvre became increasingly narrow, and at the beginning of the 1980s she had no choice but to leave the GDR.
www.bettinawegner.de
Extract from
Various - songwriter in Germany
Vol.2, For whom we sing (3-CD)
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