Why ex-City singer Toni Krahl is starting again at 75

His first band was called Wurzel minus 4. It was a student band in the GDR under the guitarist. The band in which he spent more than half his life was called City. He was the charismatic singer and became a rock star: With City (“Am Fenster”) he celebrated great success before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in East and West. But at the end of 2022 the band will break up. Since then, Toni Krahl has been traveling as a guest musician with his friends from the band Silly. Today he turns 75 – and is in the starting blocks for his first solo career.

Singer produces new album – and will tour again

“I’m producing my first solo album,” he reported to the German Press Agency a few days before his birthday. A tour is also planned. He is currently putting together a band, the Kings from Prenzlauer Berg. Named after a city song. But the album will “only contain new songs, no city rehash,” says the musician. Krahl also wants to play songs from his old band in the concert. “I long for these songs. “My heart and soul is attached to it,” he reports.

The past five years or so have not been easy for the musician, who is one of the most famous rock singers from East Germany. In May 2020, Star City drummer Klaus Selmke died of cancer. A big blow for the band.

The four remaining City members decided to quit at the end of 2022. 50 years after the band was founded. In addition to Krahl, the final line-up included guitarist Fritz Puppel, violinist Joro Gogow and keyboardist Manfred Hennig. 10,000 fans came to the farewell concert in Berlin.

In February 2024, Fritz Puppel, who was also a close companion of Krahl in his private life, died unexpectedly. “Of course I miss my friends Fritz and Klaus,” says the singer. “I now have to make decisions on my own.” Selmke and Puppel founded City in East Berlin in 1972. The first concert took place in a club in Berlin-Köpenick in front of around 200 listeners. In the repertoire: songs by Santana, the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix.

On stage wearing her mother’s pajama top

Krahl wasn’t there yet. After protesting against the invasion of Prague by Warsaw Pact troops in 1968 as a high school graduate and being imprisoned as a result, he founded the band Die Kleine. “For stage wardrobe, I preferred to wear my mother’s pajama tops, velvety silk stuff… and bell-bottoms,” he wrote in his autobiography “Toni Krahl’s Rock Legends” (2016). At the same time, he also managed to get his skilled worker qualification as a sheet metal fitter.

In 1975, the chance of a lifetime came: the then singer Emil Bogdanow was supposed to be drafted into military service with the band City, and he went into hiding in Sweden. Krahl took over the microphone. But it wasn’t easy for him because the audience really liked his predecessor. “It probably took six months and a few times of “Sex Machine” to get through. “Sometimes it was truly exasperating,” he wrote in his autobiography.

Smoky voice has become deeper

But the band’s charismatic frontman eventually won the hearts of the fans; most recently with a bald head, sunglasses, eye-catching necklaces and always with his unmistakable smoky voice. These have now become deeper, reports Krahl. “Music is the center of my life. “I can’t do it without music and without applause,” he emphasized shortly before his birthday, on which he wants to celebrate a party with friends and colleagues for the first time in a long time.

He will be on stage as a guest at Silly until March 2025. The Silly colleagues are not happy that he will soon go his own way. But she could understand. “I was received very well by them and felt very comfortable. “They’re great guys,” he says. In the past two years since leaving the city, he has also sat at home a lot and composed songs with the guitar. The production of the solo album should really start in the spring of next year. The name of the record and the tour is already there: “That’s exactly how it was”.

Brandenburg’s Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke came out as a big fan and described Krahl in his congratulatory letter on his 75th birthday as an “encourager” who gave his fans beautiful hours and thoughtful moments with his music. Woidke continued: “Your music has accompanied and enriched my life, as has the lives of many Brandenburg residents, including of course “Am Fenster” – a masterpiece that is one of my absolute top ten.”

Federal Order of Merit shortly before his 75th birthday

And there was a special honor for Krahl right before his birthday: the singer was awarded the Federal Order of Merit by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at Bellevue Palace on October 1st.

The tribute to Krahl said: “With the band City, their frontman Toni Krahl became a rock legend not only in the GDR.” “In half the country and the fragmented city, as one of their songs says, he has the attitude to life of a whole Country sung.”

© dpa-infocom, dpa:241003-930-250581/1

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