The Lords were the most long-living and successful beat band of West Germany. The band's main headquarter was Düsseldorf/North Rhine-Westphalia. No other German band was so active during more than 40 years.
In 1959, The Lords started out as a skiffle band in Berlin using partly custom-made instruments. In 1964 when Beatlemania and the British Invasion swept across the world, they turned into "Germany's First Beat Music Act" and developed their classic style for which they are still known in Germany today. In the period from 1965 until 1969 they had 11 hits in West German pop charts. Their first hit single from 1964 was Shakin' All Over (originally recorded by Johnny Kidd & The Pirates in 1960). Their other hits included the blues traditional Poor Boy in 1965, Poison Ivy in 1965 (originally by The Coasters, 1959), the Baptist traditional Gloryland in 1967, and Rockin' pneumonia in 1967 (originally by Huey "Piano" Smith & the Clowns). They also appeared as supporting act of The Kinks and The Who on German tours of the two English bands, and performed on the contemporary TV music program Beat-Club several times. These Beat-Club performances are still repeated on German TV well into the 2000s, being largely responsible for today's classic image of The Lords back then. Their 1960s cover versions of Shakin' all over, Poison Ivy, and Gloryland still get much more airtime on German radio today compared to the original, earlier, or later recordings of these songs by English and American performers whose versions are therefore comparably unknown in Germany.
And at night was the A Side, but for me Fire is where it is at! This is pretty wild...
The Lords - Fire
The Lords -And At Night
7 comments:
Actually, "Rockin' Pneumonia" was originally done by Huey "Piano" Smith & the Clowns.
This is excellent. Thanks for sharing!
i'll change that Mr. Thompson.... as that was a cut and paste error. Thanks!!!
DD
Totally sweet. I too prefer 'Fire', but I catch myself singing 'And At Night', it's a damn earworm for sure!
Both tracks appear on the LP "Ulleogamaxbe" (no, keine Ahnung...) which is pretty good. In fact "The World is Falling Down" is the best psychedelic number I've heard by them.
Good one, no doubt. They were and still are -though frontman Lord Ulli passed away on stage in 2006 - from Berlin, not Duesseldorf, and while it's true that they are the longest running German band (formed in 1959), The Rattles from Hamburg (established 1961) blew 'em off stage easily during the last 50 years, and still do... But due to a lot of crap on their hit singles, The Lords still are criminally underestimated. They have incredible stuff hidden on flipsides and on the numerous LPs in the 60s
Thanks Anonymous for the words!
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