![Bundesarchiv Bild 183-F0404-0011-001, Berlin, Lyrikabend, Jürgen Pippig](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-F0404-0011-001%2C_Berlin%2C_Lyrikabend%2C_J%C3%BCrgen_Pippig.jpg)
Jürgen Walter (real name: Jürgen Pippig, born 7 December 1943) is a German popular singer and composer.
Biography
Jürgen Walter Pippig was born in
Fraureuth
Fraureuth, located in the district of Zwickau (district), Zwickau, is a small town in Saxony, Germany. It has a population of around 5,000 inhabitants on a surface of 22.59 km². Fraureuth was a component of Thuringia until 1952.
The musicol ...
, a small town in
Thuringia
Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million.
Erfurt is the capital and larg ...
, a short distance across the state frontier to the west of
Zwickau
Zwickau (; is, with around 87,500 inhabitants (2020), the fourth-largest city of Saxony after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz and it is the seat of the Zwickau District. The West Saxon city is situated in the valley of the Zwickau Mulde (German: ' ...
. Music featured strongly but not obsessively in his childhood. He was set to learn various musical instruments, but hated having to practice scales. Reflecting on his musical upbringing he later explained to an interviewer, "I'm hard working when I'm having fun but I'm lazy when I'm not" (''"Ich bin fleißig, wenn mir etwas Spaß macht und bin faul, wenn mir etwas keinen Spaß macht"''). Then as now, the
village church was noted for its 1742
Silbermann organ
Organ may refer to:
Biology
* Organ (biology), a part of an organism
Musical instruments
* Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone
** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument
** Hammond ...
, and for Jürgen Pippig there was joy to be had in the church children's choir, as a member of which he obtained an early grounding in choral and church music that also overflowed into popular songs.
Shortly before his sixth birthday the
Soviet occupation zone
The Soviet Occupation Zone ( or german: Ostzone, label=none, "East Zone"; , ''Sovetskaya okkupatsionnaya zona Germanii'', "Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany") was an area of Germany in Central Europe that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a c ...
, of which his home region had become a part in 1945, was relaunched as the
Soviet sponsored German Democratic Republic (East Germany). It was in this new-style German
one-party dictatorship
A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties ...
that he now grew up and, till he was 57, made his career. After passing his
school leaving exams (''"Abitur"''), which opened the way for a university level education, Pippig trained for commercial work in the agriculture sector in order to please his father.
[ However, he fairly soon moved to ]Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
's Humboldt University
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of ...
where he studied Germanistics
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.
Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...
and Romance studies
Romance studies or Romance philology ( an, filolochÃa romanica; ca, filologia romà nica; french: romanistique; eo, latinida filologio; it, filologia romanza; pt, filologia românica; ro, romanistică; es, filologÃa románica) is an acade ...
.
While a student[ in 1966 he met a girl on the train to ]Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
who, after they became friends, gave him her unwanted guitar. He already had a musical background, and when, following the customs of that time, during the long summer break the two of them went off to the countryside to help with the harvest, they came across more friends who taught him the basic guitar chords. Shortly afterwards he was invited to join in the regular "Hootenannys" at the "Club International" above the Kino International
The Kino International is a film theater in Berlin, built from 1961 to 1963. It is located on Karl-Marx-Allee in former East Berlin. It hosted premieres of the DEFA film studios until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Today it is a protected ...
in Berlin's Karl-Marx-Allee
Karl-Marx-Allee ( en, Karl Marx Alley) is a monumental socialist boulevard built by the GDR between 1952 and 1960 in Berlin Friedrichshain and Mitte. Today the boulevard is named after Karl Marx. It should not be confused with the ''Karl-Marx ...
. It was from these beginnings that he became a co-founder of the "Hootenanny-Klub", a political singing group with a difficult name that was quickly rechristened as the October Club
The October Club was a group of Tory Members of Parliament, established after the 1710 general election. The Club was active until approximately 1714. The group took its name from the strong ale they reportedly drank.Pat Rogers, âOctober Club (' ...
, becoming known for a mixture of popular and chanson
A (, , french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic s ...
style songs, folk
Folk or Folks may refer to:
Sociology
*Nation
*People
* Folklore
** Folk art
** Folk dance
** Folk hero
** Folk music
*** Folk metal
*** Folk punk
*** Folk rock
** Folk religion
* Folk taxonomy
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Folk Plus or Fol ...
and Rock music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...
.[ Their performances were largely informal and unplanned. Many of Pippig's first contributions involved French ]chanson
A (, , french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic s ...
s that he had first encountered in the context of his university studies. There was a consciously political element, with a focus on singing western protest songs from performers such as Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez (; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more ...
, Pete Seeger
Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
, Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (; July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter, one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American socialism and anti-fascism. He has inspired ...
und Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
, whom he would later identify as among their role models. Western music more generally was fashionable at the time, and they also sang songs by The Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
.[
He made his first ]television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
appearance in 1967 on a programme called "Schlager einer kleinen Stadt" (''"Small town Schlager singers"''). It was only in 1969 that he attended the official "Unterhaltungskünstler" training course at the state controlled Central Studio in East Berlin. The course ended with an audition which involved choosing and performing three songs. He performed one by Jacques Brel
Jacques Romain Georges Brel (, ; 8 April 1929 – 9 October 1978) was a Belgian singer and actor who composed and performed literate, thoughtful, and theatrical songs that generated a large, devoted following—initially in Belgium and France, l ...
which he sang in French, a second in Hungarian by Zsuzsa Koncz
Zsuzsa Koncz (born Zsuzsanna Koncz) (, born 7 March 1946, Pély) is a Hungarian pop singer, whose lyrics (mostly written by János Bródy) were sometimes highly critical of the country's pre-1990 political system.
Her career started after her p ...
, and the third of which he wrote himself, using a (German language) text provided by the politically well connected lyricist Gisela Steineckert
Gisela Steineckert (born 13 May 1931) is a German writer known for her books and song lyrics. She has also written numerous radio plays and several film scripts. In terms of published output she was particularly prolific before 1989, but her pr ...
.[ He passed the final audition, albeit with the lowest possible pass mark,][ and so obtained his professional permit (''"Berufsausweis "'') for work as a professional musician.][ After this he worked closely with ]Gisela Steineckert
Gisela Steineckert (born 13 May 1931) is a German writer known for her books and song lyrics. She has also written numerous radio plays and several film scripts. In terms of published output she was particularly prolific before 1989, but her pr ...
, and Arndt Bause
Arndt Bause (30 November 1936 - 11 February 2003) was a German composer of popular songs.
Arndt Bause produced more than 1350 dance music melodies, many of which became "hits", which meant that he had a decisive influence on the music scene in E ...
.[
In 1971 he toured ]Algeria
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, capital = Algiers
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, relig ...
with the quintet. He took part in the East Germany Cultural Week in Algiers, and sand a song by Clemens Klerber (which later turned out to be a pseudonym used, for the song credit, by Manfred Krug
Manfred Krug (; 8 February 1937 – 21 October 2016) was a German actor, singer and author.
Life and work
Born in Duisburg, Krug moved to East Germany at the age of 13, and worked at a steel plant before beginning his acting career on the stage a ...
). The performance was attended by a delegate from the Brecht Archive back in Berlin, who after the performance came up and told him that the name "Pippig" was inappropriate for the music industry. He had already had the same thought himself, despite never having done anything about it. Because of his growing success he was, by now, frequently permitted the (relatively rare) privilege of travelling outside East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
in connection with his work, and he was becoming aware that, especially in francophone countries, the name "Pippig" was at risk of being confused with the (even more) inappropriate word "pinkelig". Therefore he substituted his middle name for his family name, and "Jürgen Pippig" became (and has remained) "Jürgen Walter".[
In 1972 Jürgen Walter won third place at the International Schlager Festival of the Baltic Sea States with "Muss ich denn ein Clown sein?" (''"So do I have to be a clown?"'').] His breakthrough album, premiered in 1976, was "Schallala, Schallali"[ (identified in some sources as "Schallali Schallala").][ There followed a number of further successful albums featuring Jürgen Walter as lead singer.][ Most of his most widely distributed albums date from this period. When he was 40 he extended the variety of his musical performances by studying at an artist academy in order to learn how to incorporate a ]trapeze
A trapeze is a short horizontal bar hung by ropes or metal straps from a ceiling support. It is an aerial apparatus commonly found in circus performances. Trapeze acts may be static, spinning (rigged from a single point), swinging or flying, an ...
and a tight rope into his performances, something that he first tried out at an event in the Palace of the Republic in 1983.[ In 1980 Jürgen Walter became the first East German artist to be at the heart of a personal celebrity show which he moderated at the prestigious Palace of the Republic, the event lasted for several weeks, sometimes with six or seven concerts in a single week. One of the conditions he managed to negotiate was that the event should be rerun, if not annually then at least every five years. Accordingly, at the successor show in 1990, Walter became the last East German artist before ]reunification
A political union is a type of political entity which is composed of, or created from, smaller polities, or the process which achieves this. These smaller polities are usually called federated states and federal territories in a federal governmen ...
to feature at the Palace of the Republic with his own concert.[
In 1988 he took a film role in "Mensch, mein Papa...!" (loosely: ''"My oh my, Daddy..."'').] An appearance with Götz George
Götz George (; 23 July 1938 – 19 June 2016) was a German actor, the son of actor couple Berta Drews and Heinrich George. His arguably best-known role is that of Duisburg detective Horst Schimanski in the TV crime series ''Tatort''.
Early lif ...
in the criminal comedy Der Bruch (The Breach) followed in 1989.[
Since 1992 his recordings have been issued by "JPM Berlin", his own recording company which Walter formed in the wake of reunification.]
Awards and honours
* 1980 Art Prize of the German Democratic Republic
The Art Prize of the German Democratic Republic (German: ''Kunstpreis der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik'') was an East German state award bestowed on individuals for contributions in various fields of art.
History
The Art Prize was annually a ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Walter, Jürgen
People from Zwickau
Musicians from Saxony
German male composers
Chanson
East German musicians
Schlager musicians
1943 births
Living people
20th-century German male musicians