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Apart from that, my music/our sound owes a lot to Celtic traditional music, not so much from Ireland, Scotland, or Wales, but from Brittany (Bretagne)! The far west of France, of Europe, with contacts to Cornwall, South-West England, all through history. («La Cornouaille» is a landscape in the middle of la Bretagne, too.) And the songs of Bob Dylan! Who was inspired, when he was young, not only by Woody Guthrie (from Oklahoma, USA), but also by Anglo-Irish tunes he must have adapted (or adopted?) from the music of the immigrants to America. “Blowin’ in the Wind“ (1962) is said to be borrowed, as to the music, from “No More Auction Block“, “Masters of War“ (1963) sounds a bit like “Nottamun Town“, “The Death of Emmett Till“ (1963) is a prolongation of the melody of “The House of the Rising Sun“, yeah! “Farewell“ (1963) is “The Leaving of Liverpool“ (Oh it’s fare thee well, my darling true…), “Farewell, Angelina“ (1965) is another Country favourite with strange new lyrics à la Dylan… I did my university exam (in 1977) on the song poetry of Bob Dylan. With respect to some verses of Arthur Rimbaud (F), T. S. Eliot (GB), and Bertolt Brecht (D) (for Germany). Really phenomenal, the way he fused it all into something new, his own way. Oh, I know my good old Bob “Dylan“ Zimmerman (with ancestors from Odessa, Ukraine, on the Black Sea). You may ask me if you want to know something … „Woltähr“ recorded Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody“ live („leiff“ 2000); and really nice demo takes of Donovan’s “Riki Tiki Tavi“, plus “Jersey Thursday“. “Wandering Souls“ (CD Trier by night, 2003) is a song of ours developped within an hour (really!) on the river banks of the Mississippi at New Orleans; “Hoehenflug“ (Santa Fe) … “Wolf’s Heaven“ (Dä Wolw em Himmel) … “Mosellied“ in a take-five-rhythm… “Love on me tonight“ (Canada, 2005; CD “From the Bunker“, Trier, 12/2007) is a song composed with the 7-string lyre, with Daniel Lanois (“Acadie“ & other albums) and Leonard Cohen (from Montreal) in my mind. I spent a couple of days there, and on the St. Lawrence river bank between Ontario and Québec, with Ron Bankley, Willie Dunn’s guitarist, and a tough singer-songwriter himself – so it happened that I sat in his canoo on that water vast as a lake, drifting, flying like with a paraglider > The song is in German, though, and just that line “Will you lay your love on me tonight?“ is repeated every second verse, really groovy, spooky, magical stuff… More to come
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...So why VOLTAIRE?