Fast cars, hot chicks, permanently sold-out concerts and tons of money – in 1932, the Comedian Harmonists were the best selling boygroup in the world, and they even played the Berliner Philharmonie, the German Taj Mahal of classical music, with their ironic, playful, and tenderly frivolous close-harmony songs like Lass mich dein Badewasser trinken (Let Me Drink Your Bathtub Water). Since three of the six Harmonists were so-called non-Aryans, the band was finally forced to split after the Nazi party had taken over in Germany and denounced their art as »Jewish-Marxist blubbering«. In early September of 1934, the Harmonists recorded French language versions of Cole Porter’s Night and Day and Harold Arlen’s Stormy Weather – first-rate examples of their vocal finesse, and the next-to-last melodies of a success story that ended with the melancholy, choral-like Lebewohl, gute Reise (Farewell, bon voyage) they played on their final gigs before they went separate ways forever.
Comedian Harmonists – Quand il pleut
Comedian Harmonists – Tout le jour, tout la nuit