You can also buy double-CD set KAREL GOTT DNES + COUNTRY ALBUM at jajpetr@tiscali.cz (section F – Discography). Do you wonder why the albums Karel Gott dnes and Karel Gott – Country Album are not released individually but in the form of a double set? I have to admit that in the beginning of kind of project Karel Deniš and Jana Helgova of Supraphon, graphic artist and photographer Pavel Jasansky, my assistant Tomáš Pešek did not really doing it. But we promised Karel Gott to have his CD Set completely published by the time he turns seventy in 2009. As we keep our word we have to take care of all the releases now and in the future to make the deadline? Let’s get immersed in the history of Karel Gott’s recordings because we known from history lessons that looking back at past facts and events cannot hurt.
1st CD – Karel Gott dnes + 15x bonus
The first CD included in this set features a complete album called Karel Gott dnes that was cut in 1980 in Supraphon’s studio known as Mozarteum. On this album, Karel Gott put his stakes on his reliable composers Karel Svoboda and Ladislav Štaidl and on the lyricist Zdenek Borovec, Eduard Krečmar, František Řebíček, Pavel Žák, Eduard Pergner, Richard Bergman and Michal Bukovič whom he asked to tailor-make a repertoire fir the year 1980. Understandably, most of the songs vanished without trace in the history of pop-music. Yet Svoboda’s music with the lyrics by Eduard Krečmar Beatles and Kam se schoulíš weathered all tests and contributed to the golden hits of Karel Gott. This album is complemented with three foreign songs. The song Walk Right Back (Píšu pět) was released by the Everly Brothers duo in January 1961 who made it one of the greatest hits of the Warner Brothers recording company. The song La Mer (Kdo ví, kde je ta pláž) from the end of the 1930’s is perhaps the best known hit of the ‘French singing eccentric’ composer, lyric writer and singer Charles Trenet. Originally, Karel Gott performed this song in French (!) and on his Polydor album of 1980 Eine Liebe ist viele Tränen wert. In the same year, he rendered this song in French in a smashingly successful Czech TV program entitled (From Prague to Monte Carlo) that was shot in the very heart of the famous Principality. Another successful song Working My Way Back To You (Léto jak má být) found its way to Karel Gott’s repertoire in March 1980 when this hit of The Four Seasons was remade by the then popular The Spinners of Detroit. The remake version caught the ear of one of Štaidl’s orchestra bass guitar players Vincenc Kummer whose distinct vocal sounds unmistakable on this record. (Following the footsteps of Jarmila Gerlová, Kummer immigrated to Western Europe shortly after finishing the recoding.)
The bonuses attached to the 1st CD provide two songs that were televised in a 1978 program called Karel Gott in Lucerna 1: Když mne stará matka by Antonín Dvořák and Antonín Heyduk from a classical cycle of gipsy melodies and Zbyl tu tvůj stín (Where Have You Been All My Life) from the repertoire of the American soul singer Arthur Alexander. In recording the latter song, Karel Gott was accompanied with a chorus comprising Jarmila Gerlová, Vlasta Kahovcová and Jitka Zelenková and with Ladislav Štaidl’s orchestra. The recording took place in Supraphon’s Mozarteum on October 18, 1978, and its public playback performance first sounded in Prague’s Lucerna Music Hall in 1978 (It did not appear on a sound carrier until 2004 when it was featured on Karel Gott’s 2-CD set called Lásko má – Nejkrásnější písně o lásce).
In the 1970’s cut many recordings with the Czechoslovak Television Orchestra under the baton of Václav Zahradník. Three of the then recorded songs are also included on this double CD as bonuses. The song Já měl vás rád (Ja vas ljubil) documents the artistic joint efforts of one of the founders of Russian national music Alexander Sergeyevitch Dargomyzhsky (1813 – 1869) and the famous Russian Alexander Sergeyevitch Pushkin (1799 – 1837) and along with another Russian romantic song Ja vstretil vas belongs to the pieces of music that are always heartily welcome by the Russian audience when performed by Karel Gott. Many years of Gott’s professional alliance with the Czechoslovak Television Orchestra conducted by Václav Zahradník gave birth, amongst others, to the song Píseň jak vánek (Leise flehen meine Lieder) originally composed by the Austrian musician Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828) whose parents cam from Northern Moravia (his father was from Nová Ves and mother from Cukmantl, today called Zlaté Hory). During his lifetime, Schubert wrote 660 songs and Karel Gott first rendered the song Píseň jak vánek in Czech as a Supraphon single playing record as early as 1971 (its German version was ready even one year earlier for Polydor’s Die goldene Stimme aus Prag).
Eight songs on the 1st CD of this double set present eight bonus songs that were recorded by Gott in 1979 for Czech Television programs. Popular songs such as Náruč růží, Kávu si osladím, Láska bláznivá and Přijela pouť zazněly could be heard in the TV program Kolektivně, while the folk songs Ty vínko, dej mi, sklínko má, Ještě si já pohár vína zaplatím and Pijácká (Chianti-Lied by the German composer, pianist, violinist, painter, theater and movie actor Gerard Winkler (1906 – 1977) from 1942 was first sung by Gott in 1976 on his Polydor album Meine Sonntagsmelodie) were introduced by Karel Gott in the peak time of the 1979 Year’s Eve TV program. Worth of a special mention is the song by Jiří Schelinger and František Ringo Čech Bloud bláhovej recorded with Čech’s band Shut Up that was – for hard to understand reasons – first and last played in a TV program called Zpívá a hovoří F. R. Čech in 1979. This song, along with the songs Vlak and Duet milostný, belongs to the only pieces ever composed for Gott by Schelinger and Čech.
In 1980 the Dancing Orchestra of Czechoslovak Radio (TOCR) celebrated 20 years of its existence (it was founded on 1.1. 1960). On this occasion, Supraphon released a double LP called Benefice to which Karel Gott contributed with three songs that he had previously recorded with TOCR under the baton of Josef Vobruba. Specifically, they did the songs Ptačí nářečí (Oh, Lonesome Me) by the American country singer Don Gibson (Gibson first presented his song in 1958. Gott came with its adopted version seven years later.), the aria Maria from Bernstein’s and Sondheim’s legendary musical West Side Story (premiere on September 26, 1957 in Broadway’s Winter Garden theater) and a piece by Arthur Glenn Cesta rájem (Crying In The Chapel) that was originally sung by Elvis Presley in 1960, yet it was not released until April 6., 1965. This song was closest to Elvis’s beloved Ink Spots (Karel Gott first gave this song on October 1, 1965).
The 2nd CD Karel Gott – Country Album + 15x bonus
”Karel Gott is definitely one of the most dynamic singers at the international Country Music Association Fan Fair annually held in Nashville, and one the real stars who have been invited to this festival more then once. For 34 years, Nashville’s festival has been seeing a crowd of twenty to twenty-five thousand country music fans who represent one of the best educated and perceptive audience in the world. And it was this audience that received Karel Gott five times with appreciation that has never been given to any other Fan Fair festival participant. Karel Gott won the listeners’ favor by his distinctive interpretation of Kristofferson’s song Why Me, Lord (Tady jsem). His riveting performance and interpretation of Roy Orbison’s hit Crying (Pláč) made the audience stand up and give him standing ovations. Karel Gott is a true professional and can be compared with any world star. The Country Music Association is honored to be able to introduce country music lovers to this great music personality“, wrote the then Country Music Association executive director, Jo Walker – Meador, in the Fan Fair festival bulletin C´est la vie on the occasion of Karel Gott’s 50th birthday in 1989.
Karel Gott’s first performance at the international Fan Fair festival in the center of world country music, Nashville, Tennessee, USA took place in 1979 thanks to the lyricist ing. Miroslav Černý a great country music fan who sent the Country Music Association Gott’s and Rokl’s song Dál, dál se toulám composed to a text by Zdeněk Borovec. The far away City of Nashville thus learned of the Golden Voice of Prague. Karel Gott returned to Nashville in the years 1981, 1985, 1986 and 1987, two of his concerts being accompanied with the famous Elvis Presley chorus The Jordanaires. During his stay, Gott met with the American country singer Pat Boon who even invited Gott to his Christmas TV show. The visit, however, never took place.
Gott held negotiations with Charles Pride, Roy Clark and the founder of bluegrass Bill Monro regarding writing music together with the widow of Jim Reeves who died tragically. Gott also appear in the nationwide US TV show Hi Haw Show, in Ralph Emery’s talk show Nashville Now and he also attended the prestigious ceremony of Country Music Association awards. Before going into detail about Gott’s Country Album (1981), let us quote a few words speaking of one of Gott’s Nashville performances. The statement was made by the Afro-American (!) country singer and MC Charley Pride: “When I saw him backstage, I felt the urge to tell him ‘We sing country music here and you are all dressed up for opera. A jacket and a bowtie! These clothes and this kind of music do not go together!’ Everybody around wore checkered shirts, riveted belts, cowboy boots …In the end, I did not find the courage to tell him that, and I am glad I did not. When he sang the second song, the audience stood up and applauded him. You cannot see something like that every day in Nashville, as people here are used to listen to the best of the best“.
Karel Gott’s Country Album was released in 1981. A few of his albums were so reluctantly received by both critics and Gott’s diehard fans. For instance, Jiří Černý published the following review in the Melody magazine: “If the choice of melodies ranks this album among Gott’s strongest works, then his hesitant interpretation and some of the texts send it low ….The album is sung with zest and even with an innovative edge yet without a sense of genre and individual songs“. And what does the singer say now, when so many years have passed, to the cold reception of the album in which he believed and to whose preparation he devoted a lot of time and energy? “The choice of music was really meticulous and the individual songs – of which I am convinced – suited my voice and, after all, my interpretation style. Yet it was Country Album that brought me another invitation to Nashville, which implies something. Moreover, if I sang a song like Pláč at a concert today, I would like you to see the response of the audience! Another song Ráno jedu dál composed by Štaidl and me to the lyrics by Mirek Černý has always been so popular that I have always gave it as an encore“.
Four of the songs on Country Album came from the desk of Czech composers, including Karel Gott himself, Karel Svoboda and Ladislav Štaidl (Ten dům, co zůstal sám, Kdo country zpívá, Vítr v zádech and Ráno jedu dál). The authors of their texts were Zdeněk Borovec, Michal Bukovič and Miroslav Černý. The album starts with the hit Cryin´ (Pláč, July 1961) by Gott’s favorite singer Roy Orbison (1936 – 1988) nicknamed the King of Broken Hearts. After long forty years from its creation, this song was revived on her album Live By Request by the Canadian singer k.d. lang followed, one year later, by Liza Minelli’s album Liza´s Back. In any case, this song is one of the most frequently recorded pieces of music ever and it has been changed into dozens of cover version in all parts of the world. Another outstanding song comes from the pen of Oklahoma’s composer and singer Hoyt Axton Dell (Della And The Dealer), namely from his album A Rusty Old Halo (1979). One of the symbolic hymns of country music is undoubtedly a song that was nominated for Grammy Awards in 1973 in the Best Song of the Year category. Its name is Why Me, Lord (Tady jsem) and it was composed by the Texas native, composer, singer and actor Kris Kristofferson whose works made a substantial contribution to the spread of country & western music and to the enrichment of all type of this genre. The song that Elvis Presley loved to render at his concerts, became Kristofferson’s only million-copy selling single record (it remained in music charts for 38 weeks and it missed only one week to match the record standing of Johnny Mathis’s Wonderful, Wonderful!). Like the song Cryin´ (Pláč), Why Me, Lord (Tady jsem) became one of the songs with which Gott repeatedly achieved utter success in Nashville. Quite surprising at the time of making Country Album was the inclusion of the fast version of the song Take Me Home, Country Roads (Veď mě dál, cesto má) adopted from the album Poems, Prayers And Promises cut by the country music bard John Denver (1943 – 1997). This was mainly facilitated by the fact that this song – with the same lyrics by Vladimír Poštulka - had been previously popularized in the late 1970’s by another Czech singer, Pavel Bobek. Four songs of no less strong impact adopted from foreign repertoires are also on the other CD of Country Album. Together Again (Zas pár dnů tě mám) was written by the American composer, guitarist and singer Owens in 1964. A composition about the closing down of original US rails called City Of New Orleans (Vstávej, ty tuláku) by Chicago’s folk singer and composer Steve Goodman (1948 – 1984) was made an all-American hit by the singers Arlo Guthrie and Willy Nelson in 1972 (the latter recorded it again in 1984). Goodman’s song Some Broken Hearts Never Mend (Už dávno dal jsem ti klíč), which is one of the bonuses on the double CD album, became a great hit thanks to the country music bard Don Williams, and even more so thanks to Telly Savalas who played police superintendent Kojak in a TV series of the same name. But let’s get go to Country Album. The year 1979 saw the birth of the song All The Gold In California (Dlouhý proud mne stále láká) composed by the Texas composer, singer and guitarist Larry Gattlin. Karel Gott successfully presented this song on his 1991 Czechoslovak tour where he was accompanied by a very young pianist Jakub Třasák and a country music band called Blanket. Till I Can Make It On My Own (Než najdu způsob, jak žít sám), the last song of foreign origin featured on Country Album comes from the repertoire of Tammy Wynette (1942 – 1995) whose wrote it, together with her fifth and last husband George Richey in 1976 whom she married in 1978.
The first bonus piece on the second CD is a ‘golden nightingale’ duet sung by Karel Gott and Hana Zagorová Dávné lásky whose lyrics was written to the music of Vítězslav Hádl by Hana Zagorová, arguably the most popular female singer of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Gott’s continuing cooperation with the Czechoslovak Television Orchestra conducted by Václav Zahradník resulted in the song Já viděl kvést Prahu v máji (Karel Gott first sang it as early as 1975 with the same orchestra and conductor.). Other three bonus pieces on the second CD come from Gott’s TV show shot in Lucerna Music Hall in 1979. The first two of them – Zpívej nonstop and Jez – were composed by Karel Svoboda (music) and Ivan Mládek (text). In 1959, Bruce Channell, together with the co-author Margaret Cobb, created a true hit of his career Hey Baby (Hej, páni, dámy) that made its way up the charts on both banks of the Atlantic three years later thanks to the efforts of the producer Bill Smith. Karel Gott’s Lucerna TV show of 1980 provided the following bonuses: the song Theater (Žít stokrát) from the repertoire of Katja Ebstein (her rendering of this song placed second at the Eurivision Grand Prix) composed by Gott’s then producer Ralph Siegel Jr. (nicknamed Mr. Grand Prix by some because seventeen of his songs succeeded in the Eurovision Grand Prix), or the all-world hit Don´t Bring Down by the English rock band Electric Light Orchestra that became the band’s greatest hit ever in the USA in September 1979. Do you think that this album is not complete without Gott’s version of songs adopted from Donna Summer or Abba that were also given in the previously mentioned TV programs? We could not include them on the double CD because we did not manage to obtain foreign publishers’ authorization of the Czech texts.
In 1978, a Czech television film called Ikarův pád (script by Jiří Hubač), starring Vladimír Menšík, was well received and acclaimed at the International Television Festival in Monte Carlo and received a Golden Nymph award. The Monte Carlo festival organizers decided to invite the Czechoslovak Republic to the next year’s competition where it could also present a gala program featuring the greatest names of Czech show business. In addition to Spejbl, Hurvínek and Mánička, Monte Carlo watched excellent performances given by Ladislav Štaidl’s orchestra and its soloists Felix Slováček and Rudolf Rokl as well as the singers Lenka Filipová, Jiří Korn, Helena Vondráčková and, naturally, Karel Gott who sang – besides the above-mentioned famous French La Mer (Kdo ví, kde je ta pláž) – a Slovak folk song called Išel Macek that he recorded anew especially for a TV program entitled From Prague to Monte Carlo.
At the end of the 1970’s, Jitka Zelenková, a female singer with a characteristic velvet voice, decided to go beyond her position as a vocalist in Ladislav Štaidl’s orchestra and cut a debut album called Zázemí that still ranks among the gems of the then Czechoslovak pop music. In 1980, Jitka’s frequent and intensive cooperation with the director Janík Roháč led to her first one-woman recital Zpívání on Czechoslovak Television in which Jitka introduced her duet sung with Karel Gott - Je t´appartiens -Let It Be Me (1955) (Kéž jsem to já), a famous song by the French chanson singer nicknamed the Master of 100,000 volts Gilbert Bécaud (1927 – 2001). This song quickly found its place in the repertoire of dozens singers all over the world, for instance, (Their list sounds a bit funny.) Andy Williams, Anne Murray, Chet Atkins, Bobbie Gentry, Glen Campbell, Petula Clark, Donny Osmond, Dottie West, Bob Dylan (!), Elvis Presley, Enya, Everly Brothers, Robert Flack, Art Garfunkel, Julio Iglesias, David Hasselhoff, Tom Jones, Kenny Rogers, Brenda Lee, Willy Nelson, The Righteous Brothers, Demis Roussos, Nina Simone, Nancy Sinatra, Sonny & Cher or Dionne Warwick. Karel Gott sang this song solo on his Supraphon album Má píseň of 1972.
On July 14, 1979, Karel Gott celebrated his 40th birthday in Supraphon’s recording studio Mozarteum. Logically, his parent gramophone company Supraphon could not stand behind with folded hands and wave its most successful singer’s anniversary away. Well, it took Supraphon two years to come up with an appropriate present but after all it published a double LP called Story for which Karel Gott recorded two key chansons in his repertoire:
- C´est la vie composed by Jaromír Klempíř and Jiří Štaidl (first recorded in 1966)
- Když jsem já byl tenkrát kluk (Hier encore – Yesterday When I Was Young) composed by Charles
Aznavour and Herbert Ketzmer; this piece became a world hit in 1970 thanks to the interpretation of Roy Clark; Bing Cosby recorded it on his Seasons album exactly one month before his death at a gulf course in Madrid in 1977. (Karel Gott first performed this song on September 16, 1971
for his Supraphon album Hity´71). This song was not included on this double CD album because we did not manage to obtain foreign publishers’ authorization of the Czech texts.
- Měsíční řeka (Moon River) composed by Henry Mancin, first heard in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s and later popularized by Andy Williams and Frank Sinatra (Karel Gott first sang this piece on January 21, 1964).
An absolutely special bonus presented on the double 2 LP Story and adopted from Polydor’s archives was a twirling Italian tarantela called La danza composed by Gioacchino Rossini (1792 – 1868), the author of the opera The Barber of Seville. In his composition, the author coaxes merry young people to dance in the light of the moon that has just risen above the sea. Let them fool around, dance and make love as long as the stars shine in the sky. This double 2 CD is completed with the A side of Gott;s single record released in 1981, namely with the song Nestarej se, kamaráde. 6-minute nonstop medley is not presented on the album because we did not manage to obtain foreign publishers’ authorization of the two Czech texts.
Jan Adam (The author is the editor of Karel Gott’s CD Komplet and the editor of Karel Gott’s official web pages at www.karelgott.com), January 2006