Stefan Gwildis - Das war doch grad' erst eben - 50 Jahre auf der Bühne - vierhändig

Sack tugger, sun-bed stand-up and soul sensation, harbor painter and poetry reciter, factory squatter, occasional Santa Claus and Germany's answer to George Clooney - Stefan Gwildis has been everything. This charmer of an entertainer, this walking Gesamtkunstwerk of homely soulfulness, original Hamburger Schmodder and a large dash of amused unpredictability.
And what does "been" mean anyway: he still is all that, somehow at least, and every now and then. Just the way he likes it.

"I've always wanted to do different things," says Stefan Gwildis with a laugh. Different things that led to even more ideas and ultimately to an infinite number of stories worth telling. Almost too much for just one life - and certainly enough for an evening filled to bursting: "That was just now - 50 years on stage" is far more than a concert, it is a wonderful mixture of hits and treasures yet to be unearthed, of images and anecdotes, of songs and scenes, a multimedia but very analog revue review of Gwildis' work.

In his sounding retrospective, Stefan Gwildis wanders freely between the various stages of his career, the many life-defining "first times" that happen in life: The first great love with Anna, a story like in "Me and Mrs Jones". The first self-made instrument, a bass made from a broomstick, a "daydream" tea chest, horns, horns, various percussion instruments - and with an umbrella as a reminiscence of the Hamburg weather. It's about the first tire he changed himself in his father's business, his first guitar. And, of course, the first time on stage - which, strictly speaking, wasn't a stage at all.

"My first stage, that was the street," Stefan Gwildis tells us in his warm, life-tanned baritone, which makes the glasses in the display cases tremble. "My buddy Michi Reincke had said: Stefan, if you want to know whether anyone is interested in what you do, then stand on the street and try it out! So there I was, in the pedestrian zone in front of Karstadt-Wandsbek, at the tender age of 15, with all the songs of my heroes that I'd managed to get into my head. That was the zero hour. And: nobody was interested! Nobody stood still - and I think that's exactly what appealed to me. What the hell do you have to do to make people stop?"

What followed was a career you couldn't imagine: Stefan Gwildis makes street music with companions such as Christian von Richthofen and Joja Wendt, plays improvised flash theater with his friend Rolf Claussen, he paints, studies theology for a few semesters, receives fencing and stunt training at the venerable Thalia Theater, suffers charming shipwrecks such as with his band, the "Strombolis", he brings anarchic musicals or even the rhythm'n'crash show "Auto Auto!" to the stage. There's hardly an artistic idea that's too crazy for him - and no tangible activity that he's too good for: alongside his creative activities, Stefan Gwildis works whatever is necessary and whatever comes his way - the list of his odd jobs has long been legendary.

"Being free in the things I do is like fresh air for me to breathe.
Not just in music or art, but in everything else too." This includes the freedom to have a private life. The freedom to simply pay back the entire advance to the record boss to get out of an unloved contract - in cash and in small bills, collected in a plastic bag, straight to the desk. The freedom to take his soul's pulse in peace - and to simply turn his back on the art world when it gets too much: When Stefan Gwildis had enough of the creative bubble in the meantime, he opened the Gwildis tire discount store, just like his father once did.
Together with his brother, he balances and changes, screws, works and imports nostalgic road cruisers from the USA on the side.

But the artistic abstinence doesn't last long, the music calls too loudly. When Stefan Gwildis rewrites the Bill Withers classic "Ain't No Sunshine" with "Allem Anschein nach bist Du's", many things suddenly fall into place. "My mother's Hilde Knef records on the one hand and the countless discs of black soul that regularly came into my house as giveaways from American tire manufacturers on the other - that's my musical socialization. Soul classics in German - that felt totally logical and organic to me." And as soon as the idea was born, the record boss, who had once been paid off with a plastic bag, was back on the mat: Heinz Canibol, by then a highly respected silverback in the industry and a Gwildis fan despite everything (or perhaps because of it), took on the project. While Stefan Gwildis had previously only been "world-famous" in his native Hamburg, his reputation now spread like wildfire, from the Waterkant to Vienna. He roars, whispers, croons, flatters, scats and improvises his way through the great songs of Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding or the Temptations, with an irrepressible desire for joy, without leaving out the valleys of life in the lyrics.

The audience grows rapidly, the tours with his fantastic live band become true soul happenings. And suddenly Stefan Gwildis' likeness adorned the people's columns of glossy magazines, while the genteel feuilleton indulged in jubilant reviews.
"It was all great fun, of course," laughs Stefan Gwildis, shaking his head a little in disbelief. "And also kind of crazy: I never wanted to play Champions League, otherwise the business dictates very quickly what you have to do and who you have to be."
So Gwildis remains Gwildis. And continues to do Gwildis things: writes more and more of his own songs, performs in various formations, from duos to the NDR BigBand to the Kiel Philharmonic Orchestra. He recites Theodor Storm's Schimmelreiter, sings and reads Wolfgang Borchert. And together with his old driving companions Rolf Claussen and Joja Wendt, alias "Die Söhne Hamburgs", he celebrates the wild days of street art.

Stefan Gwildis brings to the stage what for him belongs on the stage. Different things that he feels like doing. Just as he has done for an incredible 50 years. And the way it can now be experienced on his anniversary tour.