Karel Gott’s version of ‘Paint It Black’ reminds me of Arthur Brown’s ‘Fire’. The screams, the apocalyptic urgency, the sheer mania. Amazing. I’d love to hear him take on Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’ and Deep Purple’s ‘Child In Time.’ I can imagine him fronting Rammstein.

Known as the ‘the Golden Voice Of Prague, Gott released ‘Paint It Black’ in 1969 on his album In einer Welt für uns zwei.

Gott is a huge star in Czechoslovakia and throughout Central and Eastern Europe and he’s still performing.
 

I grew up with this guy’s music. In German, his music is known as schlager music (think Heino):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlager

I’m almost certain my parents had this record. The cover looks familiar. I’m wondering, did I actually hear this when I was a kid? I wish I could say for certain. That would be too much.

DM may have linked this before, but if not, this is also worth hearing by Cindy und Bert:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOAzuqngOYo

For some reason it’s called “Der Hund Von Baskerville”. Maybe they changed the lyrics. My German is pretty bad so I can’t make out how close it is to the original.

Oh, wait, youtube tells me the lyrics were changed to something about Sherlock Holmes.

Sorry for the multiple posts. Here’s a better version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs9Pp4KlHSM&feature=related

@Mark

Yes!
http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/german_schlager_cindy_and_bert_sing_paranoid/

Ah, yes. Thought so. Sorry to hijack the thread and lose focus on what’s important, Herr Gott.

Tara and Mark,

I posted Bert and Cindy on my Facebook page. It was a huge hit.

Czechoslovakia doesn’t exist any more (unfortunately in my view). Nitpicking aside, Gott used to have a brilliant, classically trained voice. One of our national treasures .

Until the big vocal finish, this version is almost mannered compared to the VERY similar Chris Farlowe cover from ‘68 or so - and if I had to guess, I’d say Gott probably swiped both his arrangement AND delivery from Farlowe in the first place!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poJtbMq6XpM

By far my favorite Schlager singer is Manfred Krug

Krug on Schlager
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gN7ygT3LQ8

Got even better into the 70’s with Gunther Fischer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?fmt=18&gl=DE&hl=de&v=ogv2mKF658c