From Gold to Brown to Blue
The story behind an ad-hoc transatlantic collaboration which resulted in a music release. Resources, videos, links.
Music by David Sutton and Friedel Geratsch
Released December 9, 2022 on Yellow Snake Records (distributed by Timezone Records) and available on all major platforms.
Original cigar-box-guitar-based music. All songs, originally composed and performed by Friedel Geratsch (aka Cigar Box Gery), translated and performed in English by David Sutton.
Available on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon.com, Amazon.de, YouTube Music and Deezer.
Cover art: Joerg Metzner
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From Gold to Brown to Blue, is an album of 12 original blues-laced Americana songs originally composed and performed on that most American of instruments, the cigar-box-guitar (CBG), by German musician Friedel Geratsch, then reimagined in English by American singer/songwriter (and cigar box guitar champion) David Sutton.
Friedel Geratsch—founder and frontman of Geier Sturzflug, the ‘80s Neue Duetsche Welle (or NDW, the New German Wave) hit-makers— worked for several decades as a prolific German language songwriter and singer before beginning, in the mid-2010s, to build and perform music on his own homemade instruments with his power trio, Garage 3.
David Sutton, American musician, writer, photographer, and author of the book Cigar Box Guitars: The Ultimate DIY Guide for Makers and Players of the Handmade Music Revolution, became an über-Fan of the Neue Deutsche Welle as a study-abroad student in Germany in the early 80s..
This genre-defying collection of soulful tunes, originally composed and performed by Geratsch, then translated and performed in English by Sutton, represents the first collaboration for these kindred CBG celebrants.
Mit dem Abstand der Jahre, by Friedel Geratsch - original source material for 8/12 songs:
Lustige Zeiten, by Friedel Geratsch and Adi Hauk - original source material for 4/12 songs:
VIDEOS:
Train is Coming (Album Version)
Zug Wird Kommen (Train is Coming: Original German lyrics/vocals)
Turn to Me (Album Version)
Wirf ’nen Blick Auf Mich (Turn to Me: Original German lyrics/vocals)
Friedel Geratsch and Geier Sturzflug, Bruttosozialprodukt, 1983
Friedel Geratsch and Geier Sturzflug, Pure Lust am Leben, 2009