JOANA EMETZ

You could call her a chanson singer in the French tradition. Born in 1944 in the Black Forest, Joana had her first big success with Edith Piaf´s classic hit Non, je ne regrette rien in her 1964 TV debut. Only a few months later she presented her first program consisting of folklore, French chansons (Brel, Brassens, Ferrat, Barbara) and German literature-cabaret“ songs (Kästner, Tucholsky).
Since then she has remained a constant figure in the German music scene. She has toured France, Sweden, Algeria and Morocco and many other countries. Joana sings about a broad variety of topics: about the Polish doctor Janusz Korczak who died in the gas chamber with the children he took care of, songs for the blues singer Joy Fleming written in the Mannheim dialect, songs directed against the oppression of Native Americans, and songs that pressure for a healthy global environment.

Unlike colleagues such as Reinhard Mey, Hannes Wader and Franz-Josef Degenhardt, who share the experience of the Sixties and the legendary festivals at Burg Waldeck, Joana avoids nostalgia. Critic Thomas Rothschild says of Joana: Her varied interests, her openness to new ideas and other influences, always make you eager to hear more about the next step in the career of this woman who has proved she can survive in the jungle of the German entertainment industry, with-out making any false compromises.“
On her current Maxi CD she returns to the songs she loved when she studied classical singing back in 1962: the songs of Franz Schubert.

Abschied von Marlene 3:34
(Joana Emetz - Musikverlag Joana Emetz)
(this version previously unreleased)
Recorded live in Freiburg, May 5, 1997,
by Südwestfunk (SWF)
Current (Maxi-) CD
"Gretchen will wandern und die Forelle spinnt
- JOANA singt Lieder von Franz Schubert";
(Wolkenstein CDJ 015)