2023-12-13 01:25:26
Düsseldorf – The blonde bard with the dark sunglasses has been the face of German folk music for decades. Despite more than 60 years of professional work, Heino is still not retired – on the contrary, he is currently completing a tour. “That’s what keeps him going, that keeps him alive,” says his manager Helmut Werner. Between planned performances in Graz (Austria) and Bad Oeynhausen (NRW), Heino will be 85 years old on Wednesday (December 13th).
These days he drives his limousine through snow-covered landscapes to let his famous baritone voice ring out in churches up and down the country. “Praise the Heavens” is the name of the tour that he really wants to finish. It was the idea and favorite project of his wife Hannelore, who died on November 8th.
Accordingly, the Düsseldorf native doesn’t feel like celebrating. “I will spend my birthday with loved ones in the smallest circle and wish myself continued good health,” he told the German Press Agency.
After the death of his wife Hannelore
Heino and Hannelore were married for 44 years – and were the dream couple of German folk music for decades. For her sake, after decades he had moved the center of his life from Bad Münstereifel in North Rhine-Westphalia to Kitzbühel, to her house with a view of the Alps. “I’ve been with Hannelore for 364 of the 365 days,” Heino said a few years ago.
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The “Bild” newspaper read that after the death of his beloved wife he couldn’t stand it in the house in Austria and that he was temporarily living with the family of his manager Helmut Werner. “We will all be moving into our house in Kitzbühel next spring because we have become a grown family. “I couldn’t go back into the house alone because I would go crazy,” Heino told the newspaper.
Heino’s actual name is Heinz-Georg Kramm. He was born in 1938 in the Düsseldorf working-class district of Oberbilk and initially worked as an apprentice baker, scrap sorter and insurance agent. Over an Altbier in a Düsseldorf brewery, he talked about his childhood in the bombed-out city, which was a great adventure playground for him.
How did Heino’s career start?
In 1961 Heino appeared at colorful evenings and in the mid-60s he was discovered by the legendary producer Ralf Bendix. He put him in a turtleneck sweater and forbade him to smile. Because one eye protruded due to an overactive thyroid, Heino wore black sunglasses since the early 1970s.
This created the “brand” Heino, which, together with hard work and discipline, became the basis of his success. He has recorded over 1,200 songs and sold around 55 million solo albums. Still unsurpassed with 850,000 records: his debut album “Heino”.
However, his career was not entirely scandal-free: in 1977 he performed all three verses of the Deutschlandlied for the Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg and former Nazi naval judge Hans Filbinger (CDU). Many people resented him for that.
Heino continued to defend the record decades later: It was intended as teaching material and he even checked with Federal President Walter Scheel at the time to see whether he could do it.
Heino and politics
Heino, who declared himself a social democrat, was nevertheless placed in the right-wing corner. The folk musician doesn’t want to have anything to do with the ethnic people. In 2019 he spoke out in favor of a ban on the AfD.
In 2013 he amazed people with his album “With kind regards”. Heino covered Die Ärzte, Peter Fox and Rammstein and posed as a rocker in a leather jacket. This made it to number one in the charts.
In 2021, he didn’t let the fact that a “German song recital” in Düsseldorf was chalked up to him as “fooling around” sitting down. After a word of power from the mayor, Heino was allowed to advertise his concert as planned.
This year Heino entered another genre that doesn’t fit in with the church tour at all: under the unsuspicious title “Songs of My Homeland” he covered Mickie Krause’s “Ten Naked Hairdressers”, the exciting “Layla” and other Ballermann hits.
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