Erna Schmidt

Here is "Erna Schmidt Live, 1969-71"......it's the only thing I can personally come up with from the band, perhaps other recordings exist but I don't know of them. Pretty unique recording progressive-psych Krautrock from the days listed.....I'll try to reconstrut their story as well as I can.....(the following text taken from progarchives.com who summarize it better than I ever could......)

In the early 60s a band named R & B CORPORATION was founded near Stuttgart which was playing conventional beat music with Wolfgang Mathias at the drums. Hubert Stütz (guitar) joined in 1965 and brought up some new blues rock elements. Further on the band crossed the frontiers to improvised music oriented at Jimi Hendrix, bands like Cream or Ten Years After and soon they became known in southern Germany. Walter Laible (bass) joined in 1967 and they played as the support for Rory Gallagher, Brian Auger, Procul Harum, Alexis Korner and others.

According to the upcoming krautrock movement they started to write their own music/lyrics and decided to change the band name. In a proper sense the story of ERNA SCHMIDT was now opened in 1969. The band continuously enlarged with Rolf Schiegl as the second drummer, Sam Drake (flute, piano), hammond player Romi Schickle, also known as a member of PROF. WOLFFF, Peter Mayer (vibraphone) and a brass section.
They gigged all over Germany and could also be seen on stage at the legendary Quartier Latin in Berlin. Known for incredibly long improvisations, usually being stoned on the stage and jamming all the way, often together with guest musicians, they developed to a very popular live band in the meanwhile.

The next change occured when Schiegl and Drake left the band at the end of the year but Hartmut Mau came in as a substitute who played several wind instruments and was part of a circle around bass player Helmut Hattler, a founding member of KRAAN. Now as a quartet they had a widespreaded repertoire of selfcomposed songs consisting of improvisations and provided with variations on every gig. Due to a friend of drummer Mathias 20 hours of recordings of that time survived which were remastered by Mick Baumeister in his studio. The band decided to publish only some excerpts which are having an excellent sound quality.

The album 'Live '69 -'71' was finally released by the Garden Of Delights label in 2000 with a 32-page colour booklet. The songs are sought out very well showing the band on a high musical/technical level and avoiding endless noodling. Stütz's various guitar playing alternating between psychedelic, heavy and jazz rock is remarkable and combined with Mau's flute the songs sometimes are close to Jethro Tull.

So, back to the BigBoy now, that summarizes it as well as I ever could....this is a fine, challenging album, complex, jazzy, rocking and, yes, in fact, Tull-like.....I got this one from my Dad, whom I mentioned before was a big Tull fan, and this was another of his faves.....I probably heard this album more than any ten year old that ever lived, but it IS a good one and stll rings true when I play it today.....as I said, I am uncertain as to whether there are other recordings, if you are a prog/Kraut expert, please enlighten us.......meantime, enjoy this, and by the time you read this I will be BACK from my retirement conference and will finally have a firm grip when my final day of work with the State of Ohio will be......I know you couldn't care less, but I haven't been as excited snce my son was born, or, at least since Randall Cunningham took a knee and kept the Vikings out of the 1998 Super Bowl, without question the most moronic coaching decision in the history of a team with many of them.......or maybe that time Drew Barrymore showed up insisting she "had to" have my baby.....

ERNA SCHMIDT LIVE 1969-71-01 Erna Schmidt/02 Wab Gott/03 Pass-Weites Luftmeer/04 Woischwiemoin/05 La Folie D'espange/06 Kleines Idyll/07 Rulaman/08 En Tag Aus Dem Leber des Monschen Pi/09 Reif Fur Die Insel/10 See Ya

Links coming......think a positive thouht for me, my family, and our future today, it's truly a huge day in our !