Recorded in March 1967, the album THE WORLD WE KNEW could well be regarded as the central part of a trilogy of LP productions, the others being STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT (1966) and MY WAY OF LIFE (1968). All three title numbers have a common factor: they were sung by no less than Frank Sinatra. Although the melancholy The World We Knew (Over And Over) did not achieve the legendary success of Strangers In The Night, Sinatra’s version entered the Top Ten on the American “easy listening” charts and was a Number 1 hit for several weeks in Argentina.

Five further compositions from the original album were written by Bert Kaempfert and Herbert Rehbein: the gently swinging I Can´t Help Remembering You, with which Dean Martin enjoyed worldwide success; Lonesome, with its solemnly majestic melody; Stay With The Happy People, which was influenced by gospel songs and spirituals; Vat 96’s simple riff theme, which is enhanced by the harsh accents of the brass and muted trumpets; and finally Talk, whose snappy theme is presented by two trumpets and which is treated stereophonically, one might say, towards the end in that it passes from one section of the winds to the next.

The remaining compositions are successful numbers of various origins: Rain was written as early as 1927 and has taken its place among the evergreens among other things thanks to recordings by the orchestras led by Sam Lanin and Arnold Frank for example. Lover was sung by Jeanette MacDonald in an imaginative musical from the early days of the “talkies”; during the Forties this number gained renewed popularity due to a recording by the trick guitarist Les Paul, while in 1952 it was a million seller for Peggy Lee. Originally one of the most popular waltzes by the Broadway composer Richard Rodgers, Lover takes on a completely new character in this almost aggressively swinging version by Bert Kaempfert.

Interpreted by varied artists such as Tex Ritter, Bing Crosby, Gene Autry and Ray Charles, the ever popular country and western evergreen You Are My Sunshine, written in 1940, was composed by Jimmy Davis, a professor of history and social studies who devoted himself to music in his spare time. In 1944 he became Governor of the State of Louisiana, having used his song in his election campaign – obviously with success.

The two remaining compositions are connected with one of the most famous names of the swing era – Glenn Miller. The Serenade In Blue, which is appropriately given a “bluesy” trumpet introduction by Bert Kaempfert, was premiered in 1942 in the film “Orchestra Wives” where it was performed by Glenn Miller’s orchestra and his singer Ray Eberle. Moonlight Serenade, which Miller composed in 1939, is probably the most popular signature tune ever to have been written for an orchestra in the big band era. During his studies with the “music mathematician” Joseph Schillinger, Miller wrote the melody “just for practice”; the serenade was one of his very first recorded hits and has lost nothing of its fascination in Bert Kaempfert’s version, despite its totally different sound with the leading piano.

In 1965, Bert Kaempfert was commissioned by the American film company Universal Pictures to compose the music for “A Man Could Get Killed” – a comedy film about a gang of crooks. Set in Portugal’s capital Lisbon, the film’s main ingredients were a diamond robbery, secret agents and a romance; two of the leading roles were taken by Melina Mercouri and James Garner.

The present disc, recorded in 1966, includes the two main themes from the film: But Not Today, heard during the Main Title, and, of course, Strangers In The Night, the love theme, which was entitled Beddy-Bye in the film score. But Not Today is proof enough that Bert Kaempfert was not only capable of writing a lovely film melody but that he also knew how to capture a Spanish-Portuguese touch, even adding a dash of Greece as a tribute to the unforgotten Melina Mercouri.

In those days Bert Kaempfert could scarcely have foreseen that his love theme Strangers In The Night would become an international Super-hit within an amazingly short time and that it would, to this day, take its place among those songs which have received the most awards.
Bert Kaempfert’s publisher, Hal Fein, instinctively knew the true value of this song which he offered to Frank Sinatra, who immediately recorded it and thus made his great comeback. After only a few weeks, Frankieboy’s vocal and Bert Kaempfert’s orchestral versions took the charts by the storm and even ousted the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys from their places at the top of the international hit parades.

In Germany alone Fremde in der Nacht was available contemporaneously in four different vocal versions, and in 1967 this composition was named the “Hit of the Year” by the German copyright society GEMA.

Over the years Bert Kaempfert not only received numerous gold discs for Strangers In The Night but was showered with other prizes, such as the “Golden Globe”. As recently as 1990 the evergreen was honored with a fourth “BMI Award”. The press commented: “Bert Kaempfert’s songs are still record-breakers! The American copyright society BMI has registered four million radio performances of Strangers In The Night, which constitutes non-stop broadcasting for 22.8 years!”

But it is not only these two film melodies that are worth a mention. I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Mexican Shuffle and Tijuana Taxi were also enormously successful; Bert Kaempfert’s Milica, also known as Sweet Maria, was also a huge hit, particularly in the USA; and finally his Two Can Live On Love Alone was chosen by the Anita Kerr Singers for their album entitled BERT KAEMPFERT TURNS US ON.

This album opens with a Bert Kaempfert composition that is one of the world’s greatest hits: Moon Over Naples. Recorded in September 1964, this piece was intended for the LP entitled THE MAGIC MUSIC OF FAR AWAY PLACES. It was not long before the excellent team of lyricists Charles Singleton and Eddie Snyder wrote romantic lyrics – and the melody became known as Spanish Eyes.

The recording by the American Al Martino sold million-fold and became “his” song, making the singer famous in all four corners of the globe. Spanish Eyes took its place among the evergreens. To date there are about 500 versions of the melody, published in highly diversified arrangements – from an accordion arrangement to a Russian balalaika ensemble complete with domra and bajan.

The other titles in LOVE LETTERS, recorded in February 1965, were released in the USA as a follow-up to THE MAGIC MUSIC OF FAR AWAY PLACES in the album THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING and, of course, included this very single (from BLUE MIDNIGHT), which had just become a top-ten hit in the States.

This particular production is imbued with the typical “Bert Kaempfert Sound” of the mid-Sixties. The solo trumpet is played by Manfred Moch. A novel timbre is introduced by the use of a melodic guitar with muted strings, as in the Kaempfert composition The Moon Is Making Eyes and the old Lotar Olias hitDu, Du, Du which was a great hit for the Ames Brothers in the Fifties under the Americanized title You, You, You.

Three of the non-Kaempfert compositions come from the world of stage: Let A Smile Be Your Umbrella is a vaudeville song dating from 1928, A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square was heard in 1940 in a London theatre production called “New Faces” and was a great success for Glenn Miller and his singer Ray Eberle among others, and Rose Of Washington Square was sung by the famous singer and actress Fanny Brice in “Ziegfeld’s Midnight Frolic”.

The White Cliffs Of Dover, the closing number on the original album, was a song composed to arouse optimism during the Second World War and dedicated to suffering England; in its day it was another great success for Glenn Miller and Ray Eberle.

And of course an album entitled LOVE LETTERS must also include the number bearing the same name; here the track, which was produced in 1963, was taken from the album entitled DREAMING IN WONDERLAND.

LET’S GO BOWLING first brought out on vinyl by Polydor in 1964. This album is a coupling featuring Kaempfert’s early recordings made between 1959 and 1964, four tracks of which have never before appeared on CD in Germany.

Surely no musician on earth can resist the timeless attraction of Latin-American melodies and rhythms – and Bert Kaempfert was no exception. As early as 1958, he had proved his ‘Latin Feeling’ with a number of compositions and arrangements. In 1964 he then produced a whole LP dedicated to Latin-American tempi.
Alongside original Kaempfert compositions which are very true to his style, we find ‘all-time standards’: O Cangaceiro which achieved fame in 1953 owing to the film ‘The Bandit’; Maria Elena which a smash hit in 1963 for the guitar duo Los Indios Tabajaras; then we have the melancholic love song Bésame Mucho or Sweet And Gentle, Poinciana, and, last but not least, The Breeze And I. Latin-American rhythm is represented in all its variety – the cha-cha, rumba-bolero, merengue and, of course, the Brazilian Bossa Nova, which sparked off a craze in the USA in its day and can be heard here in the songs Say Sí Sí and Bert’s Bossa Nova.

Bert Kaempfert and Helmut Brüsewitz co-arranged the numbers for THAT LATIN FEELING; the recordings took place in the Polydor Studio in Hamburg-Rahlstedt. In order to achieve a true Latin-American sound, the wind and string sections of Kaempfert’s orchestra were reinforced by an exotic range of percussion instruments – bongos, cabasa, congas, cowbell, güiro (rumba gourd), maracas, sandpaper, timbales, triangle, marimba and xylophone -, played by Bert Kaempfert’s drummer Rolf Ahrens, together with percussionists Hans Bekker, Günther Platzek, Max Raths and Manfred Sperling.

Ladi Geisler not only guaranteed a “cracking” bass guitar, but also took the guitar solo in Maria Elena, The Breeze And I and Bésame Mucho; the trumpet solos were given to Werner Gutterer (Poinciana), Heinz Habermann / Werner Gutterer (Trumpet Fiesta), and Manfred Moch (Bert’s Bossa Nova); Emil Wurster’s tenor saxophone is to be heard in Bert’s Bossa Nova and Say Sí Sí (together with Karl-Hermann Lüer on the flute in the latter), while Willy Surmann’s bass clarinet vividly produces a special feature with the clucking of chickens in Chicken Talk.