The Musical World of Rocky Horror

This production of The Rocky Horror Show took place at Theater Essen in Essen, West Germany in 1980. A majority of the album is in German, with lyrics (translated into German by Horst Königstein) available from the LP gatefold. This is actually rather unusual for a German Rocky Horror Show cast (there have been many), as typically they will keep the songs in English and only have the Narrator's speeches in German. Some songs actually switch back and forth between German and English, even going so far as to change language in mid-sentence (e.g. I'm Going Home: "Ich sah den Himmel durch meine Tränen in my eyes and I realized I'm going home"). As you can tell from the album cover, this was a rather unique cast. The Usherette is male, for starters!

The album was recorded live on January 20th, 1980, complete with very audible (and sometimes annoying) fans in the background. A couple of audience members keep blowing loud whistles at various points throughout the show, and the actors can at times be difficult to hear. Several sections of spoken dialogue from the play were included (this was the first cast album to do so), but to keep the overall length appropriate for a single LP they actually cut out parts of many songs! So while most songs from the show are here, they're frequently in an abbreviated form (i.e. one verse, the chorus, and done).

The original LP was well-packaged with a gatefold, lyrics, nice cover graphics, etc. It was never very widely available though, and at times became near-impossible for many fans to find. Around 2002 we had the good fortune to see a CD reissue show up in the catalogs of specialty shops like Footlight Records in New York City and Dress Circle in the U.K. Imagine our surprise when we actually received CDs from them and discovered it was nothing more than a burned CD-R with bad copies of the LP covers. In fact you can see the dotted lines in the paper where they cut out the front and back covers! To make things even more of a mystery there is no copyright date, release information, or UPC code anywhere on the disc. Looking at the face of it, I'd immediately think it was a bootleg created by a fan for sale on eBay or similar. And yet, major stores like Footlight were selling it. So I'm forced to assume that it is somehow an "official" CD-R from Ariola, with awful packaging.

The CD-R also has the tracks split up much more than the LP (which had six tracks per side). Various passages of dialogue get their own tracks on the CD-R, as does fourteen seconds of lightning sound effects that (for whatever reason) apparently warrant their own track. The sound files posted match the track splits of the CD-R, and not the LP.

Rocky Horror Show Live Recordings - 1980 Essen Germany Cast ("Die Rocky Horror Show")

Rocky Horror Show Translations - 1980 Essen Germany Cast ("Die Rocky Horror Show")

Singers

Dr. Frank-N-Furter: Decoven C. Washington
Janet Weiss: Rotrauf Rieger
Brad Majors: Detliev Greisner
Riff-Raff: Fritz Brieserheister
Magenta: Jutta Bryde
Columbia: Sue Hürzeler
Eddie: Yoyo Petit
Dr. Scott: Manfried Hilbig
Rocky Horror: Til Krabbe
Erzähler (Narrator): Siegfried Wittig
Usherette: Helmut Fülberth
Chor and Backing Vocals: Ulrike Escherbruch, Frank Malz, Dieter Schotz

Die Was-tun Band (The 'Whatcha Gonna Do' Band)

E.-Gitarre: Holger Mollenhauser/Peter Ludwig
E.-Gitarre: Claus-Michael Siodmok
E.-Baß: Lothar Gürth
Schlagzeug (Drums): Josef Bauer
feat. Saxophon: Remy Filipovic
feat. Piano: Alfon Nowacki
Mischpult (Mixing): Ludger Classen

Others

Musik & Original-Text: Richard O'Brien
Deutsche Texte: Horst Königstein
Verlag: Chappell & Co.

Das Theater der Stadt Essen zeigt Die Rocky Horror Show von Richard O'Brien
Deutsch von Horst Königstein in der Inszenierung von Walter Bockmayer

Technische Leitung (Technical Leader): Siegfried Ehrenberg
Masken und Haartrachten (Masks and Hairdressing): Günther Johannes
Technische Inspektion: Paul Dinkler
Bühnentechnik (Stage Tech): Arnold Pollmeier
Beleuchtung (Lights): Michael Niehörster/Georg Helbert
Tontechnik (Sound Tech): Hermann Dumke
Malsaal: Horst Hagenström
Schreinerei (Woodwork): Klemens Ratke
Dekorateur: Michael Abeis
Requisiten (Props): Robert Jakubetzki