"S'Tued Nömme Weh" and "Wenn Immer" I recorded in 1998 with Glenn Hughes on the microphone in English and my own text. The title “Grosse Maa” was covered by one of the most successful Swiss musicians “Trauffer” on his 2008 solo debut album “Pallanza” in a great way.

 

After the very intensive and satisfactory collaboration with Glenn Hughes in 1998/99, from which a total of 14 great songs emerged and which for various reasons have not been released to this day, Ehlert asked the question: How are you doing with your own musical work? further. This production, completed in the 2010s, is musically and vocally at such a high level, where was a new perspective here?

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For the 14 songs mentioned, Ehlert worked with the excellent keyboardist / composer Beni Mosele for the musical part. Various of his song ideas / arrangements have also found a place on this masterpiece produced by Ehlert and Hughes and recorded by Heinz Reutlinger. Hughes, who lived with Ehlert for the recording of this work, wrote the texts in the area with a view of Mount Pilatus. Hence the working title of this still unpublished work, which in the broadest sense is located in the pop music segment: "The Mount Pilatus Experience". For more on Glenn Hughes and his exciting life story, see his biography: From Deep Purple to Black Country Communion (also available in German translation).

Various private circumstances have led Ehlert, to his own great surprise, to record his own humming voice on a tape for the first time in 10 years on the album "Hey Duu ...", which was released under his own name in 2002. The deciding factors were the texts he wrote in his mother tongue and the fruitful collaboration with Beni Mosele and the co-producer Andreas Nager. The release of "Hey Duu ..." was at a time when Swiss dialect music was not as important as it is today. At the time, the partly poetic and partly very personal texts in the Swiss dialect language were still unfamiliar to the public and sometimes too direct.

 

Now the album is being digitally released for the first time in almost 20 years.

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Text & voice: Manfred Ehlert

Songs / instruments: Beni Mosele / Manfred Ehlert, exception «Träne» music Heinz Reutlinger, «Spiegel» music Andreas Nager. “Wenn Immer” arrangement Andy Mechuto.

Voice recordings: Al Dente Studio by Heinz Reutlinger

Playbacks and mix: Take Five by Andres Nager, Beni Mosele, Manfred Ehlert and Andy Mechuto

Mastering: Greenwood Studio

Photo: Elena Fuchs

Cover: Peter Frey

Produced by: Ehlert Mosele Nager

 

Personal note:

 

In addition to my great supporter and dear friend Pat, it was above all Glenn Hughes who gave me the confidence to stand by myself and to trust me again. At this point too: Many thanks, Glenn! When we were working on the 14 lyrics at home at the end of the 1990s on the album "The Mount  Pilatus Experience", which I now named and still unpublished, I learned from him that he simply writes about everything that concerns him, burdens him, he loves or inspired. No stories, poetic poems etc. In this spirit, this "Hey Duu ..." album was created: Honestly, directly, with me sometimes also poetically, slightly philosophically.

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The journalist Charles P. Schum, who died much too early, wrote in 2002 about this album "Hey Duu ...":

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Love and life

"Hey Duu ..." is Manfred Ehlert's most personal and mature album to date. Musically, this very contemporary «chanson-pop» is of an inner, strangely clarified calm, completely unspectacular and without superficial showmanship. The music is carried by moods, atmospherically very dense and yet complex in the sounds. They are fine, pastel sound paintings, the intense echo of which is the words. Bittersweet words. Manfred Ehlert deals with life and especially with love. Philosophical views of life and love experiences in the poetic contemplation of a no longer young person: That this soul striptease is not an umbilical show is due to the language of bar vulgar directness. These songs process broken, but far from mere accounting. Departure for new hope is already closer.

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Thank you very much dear Charles for your appreciative words again here at this point!