THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,369) George & Beathovens — “Víc než nic”/”More than Nothing”
From the ’70 LP Kolotoč Svět/Carousel World, a grand Czech pop rock pocket symphony that would have made Brian Wilson proud — by a band persecuted by the secret police for expressing sympathy for a student who set himself on fire in protest of the Soviet/Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.
As to George and the Beathovens, Petr Gratias writes (courtesy of Google Translate):
George And Beatovens was a Prague big beat group of the sixties, whose name is associated with the singer and composer Petr Novák. . . . a great big beat lyricist who achieved considerable popularity. In 1967, his composition “Klaunova zpovědí” scored a hit on the Bratislava Lyra and before his first album he successfully established himself with a number of singles. The group George And Beatovens (mainly Petr Novák . . . ) was involved in the Dubček era, and after the tragic [1969 self-immolation] of Jan Palach [a Czech university student protesting the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact’s invasion of Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring], Novák publicly declared that he respected this victim . . . . By secret order of the StB*, the planned concerts of the previously popular group were canceled, which culminated in its involuntary breakup at the beginning of 1972… They mainly presented melodic polyphonic big beat, in which ballads and more striking compositions alternated… Petr Novák’s return to the general consciousness of the seventies was quite complicated and he was an example of a man who paid to some extent for his human decency, honesty, but also naivety. The last album In the Name of Love was released in 1971 . . . . On the silent and insidious order of the communist power, Petr Novák and the band were denied the possibility of applying and performing concerts, and the group had to break up without performing regularly. . . . Novák found himself at the beginning of social uncertainty in the socialist state. For a while he lived on royalties and then the situation became critical. For a while he accepted Jiří Suchý’s offer to the Semafor theater, but left after one season. He tried to start a group together with the Dostál sisters, which was a very clueless attempt almost of the cafe type. . . . [H]e traveled alone with a guitar in some kind of mini-recitals around clubs and was part of a disco program. A lot of people had already written him off at the time and his future was very uncertain.Before Christmas 1974, he crashed on the road . . . and almost lost his leg. After a longer convalescence, he started working again and in the summer of 1974 he managed to put together a rock group, with which he slowly began to perform concerts in smaller halls.
https://web.archive.org/web/20131023061330/http://www.progboard.com/George-And-Beatovens/1316#
Aleš Opekar (courtesy of Google Translate) tells of their history:
[A}t the end of 1964 . . . . the new group from Vinohrad was together: Petr Novák, vocals and backing guitar, Michal Burian, lead guitar, Karel Sluka, bass guitar and vocals, Ivo Plicka lyrics, accordion and Jiří Jirásek, drums. The Beatles name proved awkward. . . . [As] they also admired bands such as Gerry & the Peacemakers or Freddie & the Dreamers. . . . it occurred to them that they could also be “something & something'”. They chose the group’s first name benjaminka, translated it into English, and as the second part used a funny anagram of the name of the famous Beethoven in the spirit of ‘Beetles – Beatles’. . . . In addition to covers of the Beatles, Gerry & the Peacemakers or Hollies sung in English, the original Novák and Plick songs were also heard this time. During 1965, Jiří and Miroslava Černých’s radio program . . . which served as a foreign and domestic hit parade, was already running, determined by listeners’ responses. The boys from Vinohrad brought their amateur recorded demos to Mr. Černá and the result was surprising. The song “I’ll walk on tiptoe” saw a total of fifteen starts . . . . The band was suddenly famous . . . .The[n] departures for the [army] came. In autumn 1965, Michal Burian enlisted . . . [then] Karel Sluka . . . . That was actually the end of the first stage of George & Beatovens . . . . Petr Novák . . . spent two seasons at the Maringotka theater with Zuzana Kočová as an actor-student. He did not return to finish his studies, because in the meantime he joined the newly established group Flamengo, so some of his and Plick’s potential hits were professionally recorded only with the new group. . . . . The reconstituted [George & Beathovens] premiered in August 1967. . . . The group now consisted of: Petr Novák – vocals, Jiří Jirásek – drums, Miroslav Helcl on organ, Jirka Čížek on bass and Jaroslav Bednář on guitar. Jarda Bednář was replaced in January 1968 by the band’s former guitarist Donald Zdeněk Juračka . The repertoire of George & Beatovens consisted of compositions by Novák and Plicka. Petr was able to give Plick’s lyrics the right melody. And by doing so, he increased the communication of dreamy and enamored, naive and poetic, naively adolescent texts for the teenage generation of boys and girls. The group successfully gave concerts around the country and in December they already played the 1st Czechoslovak Beat festival. However, it did not make it onto the Supraphon record. At concerts and finally on Panton’s records, it was a series of one hit after another . . . . [T]the group was performing concerts all over the country and everything was going like clockwork. . . . But the “allied armies” of the surrounding socialist states, led by the army of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, stepped in . . . . and after the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the situation on the rock scene began to change radically. At the end of the summer, not only Zdeněk Juračka left the group. Before him, Mirek Helcl left for the Rebels. And so Juračka followed Korn into the changed The Rebels, following Kadlec, Helcle and Kohout. . . . But the manager of Beatovens had a deal . . . in Finland, so he immediately accepted Vladimír Mišík , who was then absent, in Juraček’s place. The group toured Finland together with the Finnish singer Anki. They recorded a single for the Swedish company Sonet records . . . . But Mišík didn’t like that kind of music, so he left George & Beatovens again. That was in the fall of 1968. then the guitarist Miroslav Dudáček came in his place. That was a completely different personality than Mišík. Jan Farmer Obermayer also joined the group at that time. The overall sound of the group thus acquired a different sound. Obermayer was a skilled arranger, and Dudáček over time also began to assert his musical views. The situation began to get out of Petr Novák’s hands in the band, and Petr stopped singing songs with lyrics that appealed to his audience. . . . In 1970 George & Beatovens released their first LP. . . . Carousel World. . . . Every song is excellent. . . . The themes of the lyrics are no longer simple love songs. The titles themselves suggest that these are complicated and thoughtful poems. But the listeners were dissatisfied, because they did not expect this from Novák. They wanted to hear simpler love songs. . . . In the same year, George & Beatovens recorded another LP . . . . It was titled In the Name of Love. . . . Even though the album was received very positively by the critics, even though the listeners and fans of the band immediately bought the record, it was not played on the radio at the time, and when it was, it was extremely rare. . . . And there is a new breakup of the band. Obermayer wrote not exactly the right songs for Novák. He was preparing for a solo career. . . . And Dudáček also had great ambitions to promote himself as a solo artist. And so George & Beatovens broke up again and for good.
https://historieceskoslovenskehobigbeatu.blogspot.com/2020/01/george-beatovens.html
* Wikipedia explains that:
State Security (Czech: Státní bezpečnost, Slovak: Štátna bezpečnosť) or StB / ŠtB, was the secret police force in communist Czechoslovakia from 1945 to its dissolution in 1990. Serving as an intelligence and counter-intelligence agency, it dealt with any activity that was considered opposition to the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the state.
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