No, the Comedian Harmonists were not the first 'boy group' in Germany, but rather 'just' the first German group of this kind, who were also called "The German Revellers" at the start of their career.

The founding of the Comedian Harmonists is inconceivable without the Revellers as their model. Widely circulated beginning in 1925 with the advent of electrical (microphone) recording, the Revellers' records caused a sensation.

Unaccustomed jazzy rhythms, instrumental-like voices, lightness and brilliance, musical wit and the most cultivated vocal artistry made the traditional type of "male part-singing", predominant in Europe up till then, appear hopelessly old-fashioned.

This new mixture of barbershop song tradition and jazz, which had been unheard of in Europe, fascinated such famous contempories as Hanns Eisler and Kurt Tucholsky, for example, the latter of whom was inspired by various Reveller records to compose chanson texts of his own^.

Today, the virtuosity of the Comedian Harmonists is widely acknowledged, but their role model, the Revellers, is not. archiphon would like to close this gap and revive that art form which enchanted and swept away all of Europe from the middle of the 1920's to the beginning of the 1930's.

In Nazi Germany after 1933, this form of vocal artistry no longer had a lobby. This 'negro singing' (still used on the Electrola label in the 1920's to advertise its exotic and modern style) was suddenly considered to be degenerate ("entartet"). This was an especially painful experience for the Comedian Harmonists. Their Jewish members had to leave the group, and went abroad. Today, the mythos of the Comedian Harmonists remains. It would not exist if the Revellers had not existed as well.

The original Reveller recordings of "Nola" and "Oh!Lucindy" can be heard on KK-001 (Theobald Tigers Trichter)

distributed by:

Bear Family Records
P.O.Box 1154
D-27727 Hambergen

Phone (+49)+4794-9300-0
Fax: (+49)+4794-9300-20