We arrive in Denmark our first stop in Scandinavia. It's apparently home to the most content people in the world. I have visited a few times, but mostly just travelling through on my way further north, so don't know the country that well.
We start along the west coast first. Guitarist and composer Preben Carlsen was raised in a windy village of west Jutland, the main peninsula forming the country of Denmark, which could essentially be anywhere along the west. His first musical love was the blues and he soon discovered the West African roots of the blues. He travelled around Africa extensively and has recently started a collaboration with Gambian percussionist Sal Dibba to form the duo Ba Balance. They released their debut album Around the Crocodile Pond in 2020 and this is the opening track called Djembe:
The village of Sønderho on the island of Fanø off the west coast of Jutland may only have 299 inhabitants, but it has it's very own 300 year old folk and dance tradition. Det Yderste Hav (The outermost sea) is a folk trio endeavouring to keep this tradition alive and has released an album in 2015 of the regional dance tunes and songs called Sønderhoninger, led by classical guitarist Jørgen
Bjørslev. Generally the guitar features more in Danish folk compared to other Scandinavian traditions. This is a song from that album called Skal vi gå til fremmed' lande (Shall we go to foreign lands):
Singer/songwriter Lars Lilholt was actually born in Herlev near Copenhagen in 1953, but in 1982 he founded the popular folk rock band Lars Lilholt Band in Aalborg, which is still active recording and touring. Here is a track with a distinct Irish feel to it called Den Magiske
Møhårspensel (The magic hairbrush) from their latest 2021 album Decameron:
Next we are heading to Hirtshals in the far north of Denmark, where singer/songwriter and comedian Niels Hausgaard was born in 1944. All his songs are preceded by a long monologue in Danish or even in the dialect of his home region of Vendsyssel known as Vendelbomål, which can be a bit frustrating for non-Danish speakers (I only speak a very rudimentary Pidgeon Scandinavian...). I found one of his songs at least partially sung in English Called No Balls Blues, which is evidently about spineless politicians:
That's it for today. Hirtshals is also the departure point for the ferry to the Faroe Islands and Iceland, where we will be heading next before returning to Denmark. In the meantime you can follow my virtual rambling on my Tripline map.
We conclude our virtual trip around Germany in the state of Schleswig-Holstein in the far north of Germany, a flat and mostly rural landscape framed by both the North Sea to the west and the Baltic Sea to the east. I cycled around the state as a 16 year old and haven't been there much since, so any photos I may have taken then have long been lost in the historical archives. Our first stop is the small town of Rendsburg, where 'folk'n'roll band Speellüüd have been playing music for the last 43 years. They started off as a traditional folk band singing in Low German, but after some changes in personnel, they more recently concentrated on covers of old rock songs translated into Low German, a regression methinks. They only seem to have released 3 albums of their original stuff, which are no longer easily available. Here is a drinking song from their 2000 album Wesseljohrn called Toveel Drinkt Wie Nie (We never drink too much):
There was a strong Viking influence in Schleswig-Holstein, being almost part of Scandinavia, which is evidenced in the archaeological site of Haithabu near the village of Hedeby. This and the fictional modern village of Torfmoorholm is were many of the songs of folk rock band Torfrock are about. They were founded around 1976 and initially played covers of rock songs in Low German, but soon added humorous songs about Rollo the Viking chieftain and his motley crew of hard drinking, fighting and pillaging Vikings as well as modern characters of turf cutters, fishermen, steamroller operators and others in modern Northern Germany. They sing their songs in a bit of a modern pseudo-Low German dialect, rather than pure Low German. One of their biggest hits was Volle Granate, Renate, which is about a feisty red-haired Viking woman, who participates on a journey to America and distracting some of the crew. It features on their 1991 compilation album Torfrock oder Watt and this is a later live version:
Singer-songwriter Knut Kiesewetter (1941-2016) was actually born in Sczcecin in modern day Poland, but was then Stettin in then Germany. After the war his family fled to Hamburg, but he later settled in Garding in North Frisia, where he bought himself a thatched farmhouse, his Fresenhof. He started his musical career aged 15 and by the age of 18 played at the Indra Club in Hamburg alongside the Beatles. During his long career he played genres ranging from rock, soul jazz, blues and gospel, but he became most famous for his folk recordings sung in Low German. His biggest hit was a love song to his chosen home, the Fresenhof, which featured on his 1976 album Leeder vun mien Fresenhof:
Our final destination in Germany is the small town of Breklum in North Frisia, where singer-songwriter Fiede Kay (1941-2005) was born. Very much of the same generation as Knut Kiesewetter, the 2 of them often collaborated. He also sang traditional songs and own compositions in Low German and in Frisian. He moved 3 km from his birthplace to open a pub in Bredstedt, and the square in front of the pub has subsequently been named in his honour. Here is a traditional song off his 2014 post-mortem collection Fiede Kay Singt, Vol.4 called Dat du mien Levste büst (That you are my dearest). It is about two clandestine lovers meeting in the night, while her parents are asleep.
That concludes our virtual tour of Germany, next up we're heading to Denmark, the Faroe Islands and the rest of Scandinavia. In the meantime you can follow my ramblings on my Tripline map.
Next we are heading to the port cities and city states of Bremen and Hamburg. Now there is an intense historical rivalry between these two cities as to which is the better, prettier, more important or has the better football team. Now I was born in Bremen so I'm biased and we'll leave the argument aside for the moment... (of course Bremen is much prettier and as for the football teams Werder Bremen vs Hamburger SV, it's not even a competition!).
Bremen's most notorious claim to fame is the Grimm's Brothers fairy tale of the Town Musicians of Bremen, a troupe of elderly domestic animals that run away from their cruel owners to become musicians. There is a bronze statue erected in their honour behind the main cathedral in the centre of town.
I loved this story when I was a kid and appreciate it even more now that I'm older. To the people of Bremen themselves the true symbol of the city is its Roland though, a tall statue of a proud knight erected in 1404, which according to legend watches over the city's free and independent status. Here he is sporting a large gingerbread heart to celebrate Bremen's Freimarkt, the funfair season in October.
Musically we start with a band that I very briefly led in Belfast. Our stint as a band was so brief, that we didn't even get around naming ourselves and we only had one gig at the European Permaculture Convergence in County Wicklow. Apart from myself, the flutist Julia Cross is also from Bremen and coincidentally we grew up within 1/2 a mile of each other, although 10 years apart, so our paths only crossed when we met here in Northern Ireland. This is a first rehearsal of one of my songs called The Economic Myth with me on Bulgarian tambura, Julia on flute, Liz on violin and my Brazilian friend Victor on guitar. As for the genre... I always like to say that one of my inspirations is Bob Dylan, as he couldn't sing or play the guitar either... :) Julia Cross is a musician in her own right (a much better one than me I hasten to add) and now lives in Mallorca. Must be something in the water where we grew up to become travelling town musicians. She writes songs in a number of styles and has recorded some music, which is available on Bandcamp here and here. Here is a Reggae inspired song by her called HumanKind:
In 2003 3 school friends from Bremen-Nord got together to form hip-hop band De Fofftig Penns (The fifty pence) singing their lyrics in Low German, a language they had to learn as the younger generation didn't learn it any more. I was amongst the last generation who still learned Low German in primary school. The band disbanded in 2018 and here is a song of their last album Dat Läppert
Sik (That adds up) in homage to the local football club Werder Bremen called Gröön
un Witt (Green and White after the colours of the club):
In 1968 a couple of bored students in Hamburg started Irish and Scottish folk band Hawkers and Tramps. From 1975 onwards they switched to German folk, both traditional and own compositions with a good dose of humour, and renamed themselves as Liederjan. Here is a song from their 2015 40th anniversary album Vierzig Jahre - Sowieso (40 years - anyway) called Ein kleiner Frieden mitten im Krieg (A small peace in the middle of war), which tells the famous story of Christmas Day 1914, when the soldiers from both sides downed their weapons for a day and started a football match in no-man's land instead:
Derya Yildrim & Grup Şimşek are a Turkish psychedelia band. Derya was born in Hamburg of Turkish decent and sings in Turkish. If you don't understand the lyrics, she is not bothered, just learn Turkish, she says. Last year they released their second album called Dost 1, from which this song is taken called Haydar Haydar:
Caribbean steel drum sounds is not what you expect from Hamburg, but that is exactly what the Funk band Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band deliver. Established in 2007 by bandleader Björn Wagner, who spent some time in Trinidad & Tobago where he studied the steel drum, they developed a bit of a cult following with a bunch of 7'' vinyl releases of mostly cover versions. They have now released their 3rd album with both originals and cover versions called Expansions from which this tune is taken called Dirt of Your Shoulders:
Finally composer, sound designer and multi-instrumentalist Andi Otto from Hamburg is mostly known for his cello playing, but not as you know it. He calls his instrument a fello, where the bow of the cello his fitted with electronic sensors that manipulate a computer to produce an electronic soundscape. He has collaborated with musicians from all over the world to create unique fusions, and in his 2018 album Rwandance he worked with Rwandan singer and dancer Evariste Karinganire. This a track from the album called Igisasa:
That's it from Bremen and its suburb Hamburg for the time being, next we're off to the far north of Germany. As usual you follow my virtual ramblings on my Tripline map.
Our first stop in the state of Saxony is in the city of Dresden. Here is a view of the inside of Dresden railway station which I took during my 1987 visit of East Germany.
Dresden of course was subjected to the allied carpet bombing at the end of World War II and much of the historic centre was destroyed (not to mention 100's of thousands of people). Although much of it has been rebuilt since, in 1987 the destruction was still visible. One of my most vivid memories is of an international group of about 20 of us going to a cellar bar, the top floors of which were just a pile of rubble. As beer in the old GDR was classed as basic food, and therefore subsidised, it was dirt cheap, about 50 East Pfennigs for half a litre. At that price about half the group decided to buy a round for everybody at the same time and about 200 beers turned up on our table. It turned into quite a jolly night...
I'm sure Dresden has changed somewhat since then as is also evidenced by the international flavour of music emanating from the city. Arabic jazz band Masaa are based here and includes musicians from Germany Lebanon and Israel. Here's a song from their 2020 album Irade called Fadai:
Next stop is the city of Leipzig, which I also visited back in 1987. I haven't been since, but at the time it certainly hadn't been as sympathetically restored as Dresden, with many socialist style functional buildings. This is a display window of a shoe shop from back then. The caption reads: "Men must go dancing".
Leipzig was the home of one of East Germany's first and best known folk bands called Folkländer. Established by some students in 1976 they went through various personnel and name changes including Folkländers Bierfiedler and finally just Bierfiedler until they finally disbanded in 2008. The original name was a pun on Vogtländer, because 2 of the original members were from the Vogtland, a historical region covering parts of Bavaria, Thuringia and Saxony. Some of their songs are sung in the Vogtland dialect. Initially they sang inoffensive songs from the romantic era, but later increasingly used more political material, which could have been interpreted as Socialist in the real sense or as criticism of the real conditions in the GDR. It got them into trouble as their folk opera Die Boten des Todes (The Messengers of Death) was banned in 1982. In 2018 a compilation album of some of their songs was published under the title Wenn man fragt, wer hat's getan... (When one asks, who did it...). This is a song from the album called Der Desserteur (The Deserter):
Moving on to the university city of Göttingen in Lower Saxony, where musical comedy duo Die Feisten hail from. They sing own compositions or rip-offs of popular songs with humoristic lyrics. Here is a popular blues song of theirs called Nussschuesselblues (nut bowl blues), which describes the perils of eating the complimentary bar nuts offered in a pub:
Finally we move on to East Frisia in the far northwest of Germany. The East Frisians are the butt of jokes in Germany, much like the Irish in England or the Belgians in the Netherlands and France. East Frisia has its own dialect of Low German, which is undecipherable to other Germans and has more in common with the Scandinavian languages and Dutch. Folk band Malbrook started originally from a one album project of the same name by Emden native Wolfgang Meyering in 2004, but their success encouraged them to carry on as a touring band, which includes violinist Vivien Zeller (of Trad Töchter) and harpist Merit Zloch (of Harfenduo Zirla), both of whom we have already met in Berlin. Malbrook's music is a mixture of northern German and Scandinavian folk. Their name in East Frisian translates as Mad Trousers and is a term to describe a person dancing like mad. Here is a song from their original album called Winterleed (Winter song), in line with the the weather outside my window today:
That's it from the 2 Saxonies, next up the cities of Bremen and Hamburg, which might feature some music by myself even... Until then you can follow my virtual ramblings on my Tripline map.
