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Vol. 9: Free And Easy

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  1. Love Theme (From ´2 Kerle aus Granit´ (´You Can´t Win ´Em All´))
  2. I´m In Love
  3. Hit The Open Road
  4. Over The Rainbow
  5. Sweet Caroline (Good Times Never Seemed So Good)
  6. Flight To Mecca (From ´2 Kerle aus Granit´ (´You Can´t Win ´Em All´))
  7. Free And Easy
  8. Magic Moments
  9. Gone With The Wind
  10. Wait For Me
  11. Laura
  12. Susan
  13. Bell Bottoms
  14. At The End Of Our Love
  15. Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream)
  16. Me And My Shadow
About this album: 

Includes four bonus tracks: Bell Bottoms, At The End Of Our Love (prevously unissued), Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream) and Me And My Shadow.

Sound Engineer: Peter Klemt
Concept & Text: Bert Kaempfert Music, Hamburg
Translation: Angela Schumacher
Design: LOGICON HAMBURG

Compact Disc availability: 

Polydor 537 471-2 (deleted)

Liner Notes: 

Biography

Bert Kaempfert's great breakthrough came in 1960 with his No. 1 hit in the USA, Wonderland By Night, which went on to conquer the world. He was the first German bandleader to be awarded a gold record in the USA. DJs in the American music magazine Cash Box voted his orchestra "Band of the Future."

In 1968 Bert Kaempfert won no less than five of the annual BMI awards in New York in the category of "most played compositions" for Lady, Spanish Eyes, Strangers In The Night, Sweet Maria and The World We Knew.

In 1974 "Mr. Invisible" received triumphant applause at his first two live concerts in London's Royal Albert Hall. At the early age of 56, Bert Kaempfert died of a stroke on 21 June 1980. That his music and compositions have a firm place in international music life is emphasized by numerous posthumous awards. In June 1993 he was elected to "The Songwriters' Hall of Fame" in New York - the first German to receive this most prestigious of all international awards.

Free And Easy

Available for the first time on CD, this album, recoded in the spring of 1970, was Bert Kaempfert’s last production in "classical" two-track stereo before he began using the eight-track system for his recordings. Once again he and his orchestra made music which was truly "free and easy" in every way, and indeed nothing can be compared with Kaempfert's music: in arranging the carefully chosen pieces for his orchestra, he always ensured that the melody remained in the foreground.

In addition to the highly popular Sweet Caroline, a top-ten hit written by Neil Diamond, Bert Kaempfert also looked back to that old jazz favorite Gone With The Wind from 1937, and to two world-famous film melodies: Over The Rainbow was sung by Judy Garland in the 1939 film musical "The Wizard Of Oz" and became her signature tune for the rest of her life, while Laura, from the 1944 crime film of the same name, brought the film composer David Raksin lasting fame.

Two of the eight original compositions by the Bert Kaempfert-Herbert Rehbein team also originate from a film: "You Can't Win 'Em All," starring Tony Curtis and Charles Bronson, was an adventure film made in 1969 whose action took place in the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. With the music to this film - the majestic love theme and the action-packed Flight To Mecca are heard here - Bert Kaempfert once again broke his resolution never to write a soundtrack again, something he had sworn after the strenuous work on the film "A Man Could Get Killed" with a melody which later became a hit all over the world, Strangers In The Night.

Three of the bonus tracks are taken from the album BERT KAEMPFERT NOW! from 1971. At The End Of Our Love, written by Bert Kaempfert and Herbert Rehbein, is on the other hand absolutely brand new the world over, being a previously unreleased recording from 1969!