Hebby Birs-Day

GERD BIRSNER

Gerd Birsner is not just a dialect singer. He can also speak (almost) Standard German – and he is a pieceworker in the truest sense of the word – which means: he can make beautiful music with chords.

SCHNOOG DEF38-20-01: Hebby BIRS-Day

published in September 2020

  • Alla hopp (instr.) (Birsner/Schnoog) 2:01
  • Distant stars (Birsner/Schnoog) 3:51
  • The Baden sky (live) (Birsner/Schnoog) 4:22
  • Reginated (instr.) (Birsner/Schnoog) 1:54
  • Slaves of the Higher Octaves (Nemet/Schnoog) 3:25
  • Rappedabber emancipated (in a duet with Gundi Schultz) (Birsner/EMI) 3:17
  • Refuge (Birsner/Schnoog) 3:57
  • Geranjo (live, instr.) (Birsner/EMI) 4:02
  • Zeppelin (Birsner/Schnoog) 2:48
  • Mouth hair Monika (Birsner/Schnoog 2:12
  • Snuff slide (instr.) (Birsner/Schnoog) 2:43
  • Schnooge Blues (Gundi Schultz sings) (Birsner/Schnoog) 3:51
  • Clear? Five! (instr.) (Birsner/Schnoog) 1:17
  • Tour de France (Birsner/Schnoog) 2:14
  • Hans in the Schnoogeloch (Birsner/Schnoog) 3:39
  • Hebby Birs-Day (instr.) (Birsner/Schnoog) 2:47
  • Spring in Winter (duet with Gundi Schultz)(Birsner/EMI) 3:01
  • Sky Blue (Birsner/Schnoog) 3:27
  • Musettango (instr.) (Birsner/Schnoog) 0:57
  • Salü Paul (for the innkeeper Paul Schuhmacher) (Birsner/Schnoog) 4:22
  • Friends bliin (Grace, live) (trad./Schnoog)3:20

Hebby Birs Day:

All hop! 44 years of brilliant Birsnereien

Gerd Birsner - de Birsnergerd

Yes, what now? Dialect songwriter? storyteller? dumbass? guitar virtuoso? Lapidary Sailing? Harmonica blower incarnate? (Subtle) Copywriter? (pseudo)composer? Arranger?

Anyone who believes that Birsnergerd, which has grown tall and now also a bit wide, because of its (more or less regional) hits like "WENN de Babbe in de Schlabbe in de Rappe dabbe duut" (in High German: When the father in his slippers goes to the inn to Rapping goes) or "De Schnooge-Blues" (The Mosquito Blues) can only sing Baden dialect songs is on the wrong track.

After all, he had once studied music - first for a teaching post in Landau/Palatinate and later in the pop music pilot project at the University of Music and Theater in Hamburg.

Far more than 1000 Birsner titles are listed with GEMA – after all, for years he had written, composed, arranged and produced a cabaret song every week for the SDR cabaret show “Blitzableiter”. "You learn how to work quickly..."

During the past gloomy Corona times, which allowed far (too much) time, he has now dug up small pearls, medium-sized treasures and undreamt-of, long-forgotten evidence of Birsner's music creation in his extremely lush archive and saved them from the past modern and made them somewhat present with gentle polishing tried to do.

We think that these titles, which are now packed on CD, are definitely worth being completely renewed and therefore not withheld from the existing posterity. And so the CD was created with pieces from Birsner's first shaky musical attempts to brand new titles from the Corona-Baden here and now.

His way of arranging something unconventional, allowing unusual instrument marriages, unconventional song themes, hand-polished texts and unusual interpretations is truly not commonplace. And so on this CD you will find zippy instrumentals, old, thawed songs and brand new material. Have fun listening. Alla hop ...!



Life

GERD BIRSNER – de Birsnergerd: Alla hopp...!

It's been more than 40 years since he made his very first appearance with his own songs at the age of 23 in the Alte Feuerwache in Mannheim.

Before that he tried his hand at imitating Bob Dylan and John Mayall and was the guitarist for the dance band Imperial in Litze near Kehlam Rhein. When he met Dieter Kindl, the bass player of "Joy Fleming & the Hit Kids" in the city of squares, things went from bad to worse: 1977 first TV appearances - and then in 1979 the first LP "Schwindelfrei", released by Stockfisch. In 1980 it set the Baden-Württemberg cabaret prize. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he studied music for a teaching post in Landau in der Pfalz and then pop music at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg, where he studied Knut Kiesewetter and Professor Dr. Hermann Rauhe met, Peter Horton and Hans Haider had shown him how to pluck a snappy Bossa. He had lived there with good old Ernst Bader, the ingenious lyricist of so many hits and chansons. And he had learned quite a lot from him as well.

He was allowed to perform at the Wa(h)lpurgisnacht chancellor festival with Helmut Schmidt, in 1981 he played at the TV-WDR folk festival on the cathedral square in Cologne and in 1983 he represented the Federal Republic of Germany at the big GDR festival "Menschen und Meer" in Rostock, Er wrote lyrics for Edo Zanki, acted on TV with Tony Sheridan and was often invited to neighboring countries.

In 1981, for his first own LP "Dreikäsehochs & Lufti-Küsse", produced on the Schnoog label, he even won the "Prize of the German Record Critics - Quarterly List". In the meantime a few more have been added: free from giddiness and more than CD, then as I said Dreikäsehochs and air kisses, time shift, lots of acoustic nights, Phantamalia, Captain Huch - being a pirate is great (for children) and Birsner 2007 - and of course participation on several CD samplers such as "Bardentreffen Nürnberg" or Liederbrunnen, a joint CD with songwriters from Baden and Alsace.

In 1978 the SDR (today SWR) became aware of him. There he presented programs such as "Folk-Lied-Song", produced Schmonzetten and Wopchensongs for the cabaret show Blitzableiter, made contributions for school radio, authentically mimed the country freak Floppy on the youth program "Point", supervised "Also listen, music" on children's radio SDR, contributed to SWR Freiburg's "Unser Ortumsteher" (after all, he was mayor in Rheinau-Diersheim for 20 years after returning to Baden from the Swabian diaspora in 1988). Just to Diersheim near Kehl am Rhein.

Today he still performs, tells smuts and bizarre things from the full madness of everyday life between his songs, plays with the words - and by the way also has an extremely quick gut on the guitar and blows bluesy-happy into his harmonica - in short - something for young and old alike , albeit not in front of as large an audience as it used to be.

Alla hop!


other Birsner recordings

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