Kalemegdan Disk - ROCK FROM EASTERN EUROPE

Supraphon Release Information

Unreleased concert of Karel Kryl in Pilsen on 11 January 1990

Karel Kryl’s returns to Czechoslovakia, which is beginning to recover at the end of 1989 from more than forty years of communist rule, put a detached face on his stimulating songs. The detached face of a man “direct” and essentially “unclassifiable”.

After twenty years of enforced concert fast, Karel Kryl is preparing a home tour, the first stop of which – thanks to the organizer Ivan Jáchim – is Pilsen. However, he has already performed at the spectacular “Koncert pro všechny slušný lidi” (Concert for All Decent People). “I’m on a plane to Sydney in 36 hours. It took me twenty years to get to Pilsen. But I knew the place, the area and all.”

His touring schedule is demanding, with two concerts in Pilsen alone during 10 and 11 January 1990, including a press conference and a night jam session with violinist Milan Benedikt Karpíšek at the Pilsen Hotel. It was in the local and now defunct “Dom kultury” (House of Culture) by the banks of the Radbuza River that this carefully edited radio recording was made, capturing the unique atmosphere of Kryl’s songs, whose meanings are unquestioned by a unanimously harmonious audience.

Thus, the first minor chord rings out in the verse “Cesta je prach a štěrk a udusaná hlína” (The Road Is Dust and Gravel and Choked Clay), and outside the album “Bratříčku, zavírej vrátka” (Little Brother, Close the Door), Karel Kryl also selects from recordings spanning the years 1969 to 1979 – “Rakovina” (Cancer), “Maškar” (Masquerade) and “Karavana mraků” (Caravan of Clouds). After all, “it’s hard to write new things cheerful,” Kryl declares between songs, when he is not dramatically reciting his imaginative poems spiced with a good dose of humour. “It was like being thrown into the water when I came home after so many years. But the water was warmer than I had expected.”

In the following weeks, his travels gradually took him to Slovakia, where he symbolically hoisted the still Czechoslovakian flag on Mount Chopok in the Low Tatras...

As part of its centenary, Czech Radio is commemorating Karel Kryl’s artistic and social legacy. The Karel Kryl whose songs have reached all listening hearts since the mid-1960s. The complete radio recording is released on the CD “Plzeň ’90” (Pilsen ’90). It contains the extra songs “Píseň o žrádle” (Song of Food), “Dívka havířka” (The Raven Girl), “Braniboři v Čechách”, “Za prachy” (For Money) and “Čardáš a Vasil” (Čardáš and Vasil).

Tracklist

Side A

1. Morituri te salutant 4:47
2. Karavana mraků 4:48
3. Lásko! 4:12
4. Veličenstvo Kat 5:35
5. Bratříčku, zavírej vrátka 2:31

Side B

1. Salome 2:54
2. Anděl 4:31
3. Pušky a děla 1:50
4. Rakovina 5:03
5. Srdce a kříž 3:29
6. Děkuji 3:27