Udo Jürgens: splendor of the grand gesture – Times Online

Udo Jürgens was always critical, but never radically. As of German cabaret singer he invented the serious hit. An obituary

21st December 2014 23:24 clock

Udo Jürgens 1973 in the Camargue during filming for the” Show as desired “| © Horst Ossinger / dpa

musical careers but know many beginnings just a few key events. Udo Jürgens experienced its in Munich. The budding musicians from Austria had taken lodgings with some friends in a boarding house and coiffed hair on half strongly, or how and Austria says on schlurfig. It is the Munich of the fifties, the last here until at least 1961, when in the Schwabing riots the “Twist Youth” is beaten with police batons. Stores like the former officers’ club P1 are no honorable houses, but jazz scales, where you can bounce to American rhythms with their feet. In the Studio 15, the young Schlaks from the province sees the flash of gold saxophones and feel the dull vibration of the bass. Variables such as Ella Fitzgerald and Nat “King” Cole have played here. On this day here jazzt only Freddie Brocksieper, but when Udo Jürgens for the first time enters this stage, he still has weak knees.

Pause music he is playing, but for him it is a chance of the sort that can change a life. Courageously, he hits the keys of the wing, and perhaps you can imagine him in this Sept. 30 as he later became famous: as a man at the piano, covered the head, eyes closed like times and turned his head half the audience , It is more likely that he first picked up nervous and a little too hard on the keys: C-Jam Blues , then All of Me in D major. A little later the quiff it depends dissolved in the face and the sweat-stained, surrounded by enthusiastic jazz fans the opportunity musician has a fixed arrangement. It’s 1955, Udo Jürgens just turned 21 years old.

In his autobiographical novel called The Man with the bassoon , whose title in 2004 alludes to his grandfather, Jürgens has described this evening as a key experience, even if out of it but then not a jazz musician was, as he had hoped that evening. Instead, he became the “phenomenon Udo Jürgens,” as the treated it 1971 book, the authors of the populist writer Johannes Mario Simmel belonged.

The great fame during the Grand Prix

Born as Udo Jürgen Bockelmann in Klagenfurt in an upper-class home, related to the Dadaist Hans Aro and Frankfurt Mayor

Werner Bockelmann, Jürgens still belonged to the Hitler Youth generation. The great German organization almost prevented the musical career: Since a slap in the face, giving it a Hitler Youth leader had missed because of physical incapacity, he was almost deaf in one ear.

He did not let on. Later he wrote songs for international stars such as Frank Sinatra, Shirley Bassey and Bing Crosby. He became famous with easy songs. They sang blond hair and a crib Señorita, and spared no endgereimten refrain findings such as “Polka good for Trallala, love well for Hopsassa”. The really big fame came with the Grand Prix d’euro vision 1966 in Luxembourg. It was his third attempt. This time he won with Merci Chérie . During the counting of votes he had suffered a first heart attack, he admitted later.

The Grand Prix glory was the opportunity for reinvention. In the seventies and eighties, Jürgens developed consistently away from Trallala and toward the critical and narrative song. If he mastered many variants of jazz, folk through to hit, so his true metier was but the German-language song, a rare genre. Targeted content, Udo Jürgens’ songs often life-worldly. It was about abundance and overweight ( Aber bitte mit Sahne ) and aging ( With 66 years ). His criticism hit translucent Civil Spießigkeiten ( A worthy house ), ecology ( 11:55 ) and finally the Patriarchate ( The man is the problem ) , Even before drug use ( Red Poppy ) and the Kremlin ( Babuschkin ), he did not stop, so even conservatives could appreciate his songs.

Show-Biz with Edelkitsch

Udo Jürgens was critical, but not radical. He aimed at persons who, from agit-rock Rio Reiser as far away as the sharp accusations Hannes waders. Unlike the equally from Chanson coming Reinhart Mey him the singer-songwriter Stallgeruch the castle Waldeck Festival missing as well as the politicization Konstantin alarm clock. Jürgens’ profession always remained the show-biz and very grand gesture to the Edelkitsch like the white satin tuxedo and the glass wings belonged to a matter of course. His performances in the ZDF Starparade are legion, and even with critical lines appeared Jürgens in a colorful evening between television ballet and swaying insert as the serious man at the piano, he was well within.

As a frequent guest on the German talk show Sofas he entertained the audience with smaller denominations of the private life such as a cosmetic surgery his jug ears at a young age was recently with Markus Lanz. He wanted to more important topics such as his two divorces, illegitimate children or his interpreted as tax evasion Moving to Switzerland less like to talk and thus waived a typical celebrity autobiography, but chose the form of the family epic, filmed in 2011 in the ARD.