T H E B L I Z Z A R D S
T H E M I N S T R E L S , T H E B E A T N I C S
and other bands, founded or as guests in Stade and surrounding area
The Beat-Years in the Region Stade, Lower Saxony, Germany
The small town of Stade is situated at the southern banks of the Elbe river, between the city of Hamburg and the river's mouth. Already at the end of the 1950s some youngsters of the region founded bands covering with great enthusiasm songs of the international music stars like Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Fats Domino or the King of Skiffle Lonnie Donegan, primarily to improve their pocket-money. Some years later during the period 1961–1964 these early Rock´n Roll and Skiffle groups were the basis for the first beat bands in Stade THE BLIZZARDS, THE BEATNICS and THE MINSTRELS, which became famous in the whole Elbe-Weser region. Because of the announcement of the Hamburg Star-Club “On Friday 13th the Star-Club starts its Rock´n Twist-Parade 1962” at the beginning these bands called themselves Rock´n Twist-Bands.
During the years 1963 – 1964 these three bands participated successfully in the 2nd and 3rd beat band battles in the legendary "Star-Club Hamburg". These competitions had become milestones in the history of German beat music and you could read in the respective newspapers headlines like “German Rock Amateurs becoming Beat Stars”. CDs with the bands participating in these events are still available in the music scene demonstrating the high standard of the bands. Like other bands, which were both competitors and also friends, e.g. THE BLACK STARS from Bremerhaven and THE PHANTOM BROTHERS from Rendsburg, THE BLIZZARDS and THE MINSTRELS - as a result of their successful performances - got offers for further engagements in the Star-Club, but now for “good money” and the big chance to perform together with other international groups.
At the same time Star-Club owner Manfred Weissleder and Siegfried E. Loch, producer of Star-Club-Records, made additional attractive offers to the bands: record contracts, numerous gigs in “the most famous Beat-Club of the world”, concert- and PR-tours in Germany and even in England. To realize all these activities the young semi-professionals had to interrupt or even give up their safe jobs or studies. Most of the band members, however, rejected the offers to become professional musicians, because the change from an already safe job development against a vague hope of a music career seemed too risky.
Nevertheless THE BLIZZARDS reached international popularity up to now, not only through their more than 30 recordings which were published over and over again. Also THE MINSTRELS achieved an unforgettable name in German beat history because of their success in the nationwide 1964 band contest organized by the UNITED ARTISTS film company in cooperation with the Star-Club. And also other Stade bands like THE BEATNICS, JERRY AND THE BEATNICS and THE RAGS reached a high standard and were well-known in the Elbe-Weser area.
Details of the history of the most popular Stade beat bands can be found in the CD-booklets of “The Star-Club Singles Complete”, “Beat Band Battle”, “The Blizzards – Best and Rarities”, “Beat in Germany – The Blizzards”, and additionally in several publications of fanzines like “Heartbeat” or “Glitterhouse”, on the Star-Club websites of the “Center of Beat” as well in the books “Star-Club”, “Die deutschen Beat-Bands”, “Shakin´All Over – Die Beatmusik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1963-1967”, “Star-Club – Die Legende lebt” ("Star-Club - The legend is alive"), "Thank You For The Days - The 60s Picture Book" and "Beat Lexion - Vom Mersey-Beat bis zum Bubblegum".
With this site we try to round off already published details of the scene with our own available material and that of interested beat fans to an overall picture of that “Beat-Life”. This includes details of the well-known clubs of the region as well as the other local “colleagues” like THE STARLITERS, HERBY AND THE ROCKING STARS, THE SCAMPS, THE TORPIDS. But we are also glad to remember many of our guests and partners on stage from the neighbouring regions and from afar, e.g. THE GENTS, THE TONICS, PIGGY AND THE JOKERS, LEE CURTIS AND THE ALLSTARS, THE MERSEY FIVE and IAN AND THE ZODIACS.
This site was created in 2001 by Gerd “Jerry” Dethlefs alias “Blizzard Jerry”, 1958 – 1998 vocalist and guitarist of several bands, member of THE BLIZZARDS in the years 1961-1964 and 1967-1970, and in the meantime due to his military draft a band member of THE BEATNICS as well as THE MINSTRELS. Our thanks to Norbert Sonderfeld (radio moderator, music journalist), Hans-Jürgen Klitsch (author, writer of CD-liner notes), Ulf Krüger (“Center of Beat”), Heinz Dietz und Mathias Buck (authors), Horst Fascher (former manager of the Hamburg Star-Club), all providing interesting information and enjoyable contributions, and not to forget all of the engaged friends of beat music, who rummaged into their private collections.
German page updated and translated 2007-08-02 by Jost "Mac" Schneider, Würzburg, Franconia, Germany.
