There was a voice that had touched him deep in his soul and heart even in his early youth. He knew that voice could express and perform exactly what he was unable to do himself. The encounter and collaboration with Glenn Hughes (including Deep Purple, Black Country Communion), whose incredible vocal talent in 1989 filled the melodies of 3 songs written by Ehlert with life, is still one of the most valuable for him to this day. Unfortunately, in 1989/90 Glenn was unable to record more songs for personal reasons. It was a whole 10 years before the next collaboration (more about these fruitful sessions see Manfred's personal album "Hey Duu..."). After a long search and various sessions with great singers like David Hanselmann and Jay Miles, Manfred found the person of Marc Storace, whom he became aware of through his impressive work with bands like TEA, KROKUS and above all the special BLUE project. So Marc sang the remaining 6 songs in 1993.

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In 1994 these recordings were released on CD under the name "Manfred Ehlert's Amen". I would like to take this opportunity to thank the former Koch Records Switzerland head Elmar Fürer for his support. He was also responsible for the 2002 release of my dialect CD "Hey Duu...". Our business cooperation turned into a personal friendship, for which I am still very grateful.

 

Instrumental guests in Manfred Ehlert's compositions are Charlie Weibel (Becken, hi-hat on "Make My Day", "Call My Name", "We just have to do it", "The mile worker "," I don't wanna lose my mind ") and Pete Borel (lead guitar on" We just got to do it "," Total control "," Boys in blue "and" Call my name "), Dick Scherzinger (guitar with "Make my day", "Mile worker" & "I don't wanna lose my mind"), Beni Mosele (piano with "Love me as I am"), Roland Ruckstuhl (orchestration "Love me as I am "), Erdal Kizilcay (bass, guitar and percussion for“ Child In The Mirror ”and“ Mile Worker ”Grooveland Version) and Jay Miles (backing vocals for" I don't wanna lose my mind ") alongside Manfred Ehlert ( Drum programming, guitar, bass, keyboards for all songs). The lyrics were written by Rick Laine, Manfred Ehlert and Marc Storace. New mastering from Gary Jones.

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Marc dedicated the words of "Love me as I am" to his dear mother who died of cancer far too early.

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The instrumental playbacks and the voice of Glenn Hughes on the songs "Make My Day", "Child In The Mirror" and "Mile Worker" were recorded in 1989 at Soundville Studios in Lucerne. In 1990 the multi-instrumentalist Erdal Kizilcay (including David Bowie, Tina Turner) recorded bass, guitar and percussion for the songs “Child in the Mirror” and “Mile Worker” (Grooveland Version) in St. Blaise and the titles with Manfred mixed.

In 1993 Manfred Ehlert and Donald W. Richards produced and mixed the songs "Do It", "Total Control", "Boys In Blue", "Love Me As" after various sessions with various singers at Nighttower Studios, Alpnach, with Marc Storace I Am "," Call My Name "and" I Don't Wanna Lose My Mind ".

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Sculpture: Roland Nadig

Sculpture photographer: Sandro Diener,

Cover remake: Sebastian Hugelshofer

Shortcut video: Jörg Hennecke

 

Personal note:

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The demos and CD's “Manfred Ehlert's Amen” and “Aguilar”, which were created in months of night work alongside full-time jobs, were created between 1988 and 1996. An important and valuable partner in the realization of these 2 albums from 1990 was studio owner, co-producer tireless musician / computer freak Donald W Richards. By the way, he also worked on the 1988 Eurovision winning title by Celine Dion, written by Atilla Sereftuğ and Nella Martinetti.

In the early 1990s, computer technology was not up to date and the material available was incredibly expensive. There were no small mobile phones, affordable mixing desks, tape machines, hard disk recording etc. All of this was still in the starting blocks. I used a small Atari 1040 computer with floppy disks. Donald's studio was in the back on the way to Mount Pilatus in a farmer's barn in his bunker. Donald was then a beta user for one of today's successful music software companies and had helped in hundreds of hours to discover software errors and fix them. He was also one of the first to build and ultimately build a total recall studio. I was in the beginning of my project in his studio: I spent many nights waiting because something didn't work. But Donald had the patience of a herd of elephants and worked for years until his system really worked. I am infinitely grateful for everything he has done, even if I was on the verge of collapse: 03:00 in the morning or later driving home down the hill through the night with no real result and ready for mine again at 07:00 To be a full-time job, in the evening again from 8:00 p.m. in the studio etc. .. This also with snow and frozen streets .. As he said again and again: Wait, now it will work right away .. And one day everything worked! My motto back then: I can sleep when I have died ..

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Cover: For me, the Swiss sculptor's interpretation of Michelangelo's "LA FURIA", which means anger or anger, stands for strength, strength and indomitability.

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I dedicated this album to the following people (RIP):

Christine Brusco, Marco Crivelli, Rolando Nadig and Dani Barth.