Contemporary Cheesy Gypsy Swing

Barengero

Hi Folks,

i found this lovely german website with a LOT of music you can listen to and even download. You can find some rare recordings of Häns´che Weiß, Titi Winterstein, Raphael Fays´classical guitar, Zipflo Weinrich.

http://www.zigeunerwelt.de/musik/index.php

But: You can also find there a whole bunch of contemporary kitchy and crappy sounding, really lovely gypsy tunes; most of them sounding like one-man-bands with a 12-preset-keyboard. I was very glad to find some of the insider-standards like "Erzähl mir keine Märchen" and very much tunes with lyrics in romanes. They may sound funny if you listen only once, but when you listen to them twice or more often, you will find that they have their own special flavour. This is what i like in gypsy music even if it is a little bit shallow sometimes.

Once I saw Romeo Franz and his band playing after hours in the basement of a hotel after a concert. It was very late, when suddenly Romeos brother Manolito began to sing with his wonderful voice, accompanied by his brother. He sang trashy tunes like "Das alte Lied" and "Pardon Madame" - Operetta stuff; but he did it very serious and earnest. Then suddenly you could see grown-up men getting deeply affected by this singing and beginning to cry! I think this is what music is all about when it is live. Since then I have great and earnest respect for so called "Tearjerkers".

My favorites on that website are Georg Winter and Holländischer Tschabo and Rein Merscha. Please don´t laugh at me.

(Of course there is a lot of rubbish on that site , too, I know)

Let me know what you think.

Best,

Barengero

Ando

Thanks for the tip, Barengero. There's a lot of music on that site, and it's a mystery to my why anyone would laugh at any of it. In my opinion, the only objectionable thing in music is insincerity.

Cheers,
Ando