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LAST ALBUM – My special love songs

Last Radio Show, the last film by Robert Altman starring Meryl Streep and Woody Harrelson, is one of my all-time favorite films. In reference to this film, I named this album.

This is indeed my last album that I want to release and will release. And not only on the digital platforms but properly. And properly means: Analog, well quasi (it‘s a CD), with a beautifully designed cover, which you can hold in your hand. Something for people who appreciate quality and authenticity in these incredibly fast-moving and arbitrary times-and still have a CD player…

In the forty years I‘ve been in this music business, I‘ve always tried to tell original stories that have something to do with people‘s everyday lives, that they can identify with. About which they could smile or laugh – or sometimes become thoughtful and occasionally perhaps shed a little tear. Unfortunately, I have increasingly gained the impression in recent years that the time of these stories is over. We have lost out to the speakers of banality and pompous bombast. This is true both nationally and internationally. Sales strategy (marketing) beats substance. The digital dictatorship is eating its children. Of course, there are still the musical niches that also find their audience. And I‘m always happy when I discover new projects and artists who make wonderful music without looking at the mainstream or TikTok and the like.

And what does all this have to do with this album? A whole lot! And why the last album of Dirk Busch in English? Coming up …

I‘m musically socialized by Ameri- can music, not by German Schlager. I only ever found German songs good if the story was funny (Bill Ramsey, Hazy Osterwald Sextet, Hans Arno Simon etc.) or had a socio-political kick (Udo Jürgens for example or Reinhard Mey). The usual German Schlager never interested me much. And if you take a closer look at my productions and releases over the last four decades, you will realize that the production style, the arrangements, the instrumentation are quite different from the typical German productions from the same period. Okay, what does the artist want to tell us?

This album is back to the roots. Small melodic stories about love, probably the most important topic of our lives.

Eleven own songs, created over the years, including a few new ones, not released so far, and four songs by people, artists, who have always been coordinates for me, the some earlier, others later: Gordon Lightfoot, Jim Croce, J.J.Cale and Mark Knopfler. Songwriting at its best! I hope that these wonderful musicians and writers would also accept my songs as a contribution to substantial songwriting.

But what would an album like this be without the musicians who play a significant part contributing to success of this album? My great thanks go above all to my long- time comrades-in-arms KARSTEN GÜNTHER and DIRK SCHLAG, who with great commitment and wonderful musicality as arrangers, keyboarder, guitarist, bassist, drummer, percussionist etc. have realized the things I had in mind. In addition, other musicians have played a big part in this album, for example Uli Beckerhoff, flugelhorn, Ulrich König, oboe, and Lars Slowak, bass. And my American friends in Florida: Jack Shawde, electric guitar, Mike Menell, bass, and Götz Kujack, drums, and back in Germany respectively Denmark : Nils Tuxen on pedal steel.Thank you for your commitment and your skills!

Last but not least I have to make a confession. When you spend weeks, months and years writing and pro- ducing songs, you‘ve heard and tweaked them so many times that as an artist (at least that‘s true for me) you can‘t really appreciate the finished product anymore. Which means that I actually listened to my LP‘s and CD‘s after the produc- tion was finished only for the final check but never gladly for private use. This is completely different with this album for the first time. It is the only Dirk Busch album that I can listen to a few times in a row, with a good glass of wine and an interesting book – or just like that.

And that‘s exactly why, from my highly subjective point of view, these „Special Love Songs“ are the perfect material for my „Last Album“. If I were American, I would simply say: Enjoy!

Yours sincerely,