Frumpy -

Frumpy was a German post-psychedelic soul-rock band responsible for the 1970/71 Philips titles All Will Be Changed and 2, followed by the 1972 Vertigo release By the Way. Three members regrouped in Atlantis, which made four albums before singer Inga Rumpf launched her solo career.

Members: Inga Rumpf (lead vocals, percussion, guitar), Carsten Bohn (drums, percussion), Karl-Heinz Schott (bass, percussion, 1970-72, 1994-95), Kravetz (organ, piano, Mellotron, percussion, saxophone, spinet, 1970-71, 1972, 1990-95), Rainer Baumann (guitar, 1971-72), Erwin Kania (organ, piano, 1972), Thomas Kretschmer (guitar, 1972)

Background

Frumpy formed in March 1970 as an outgrowth of the City Preachers, a Hamburg folk-rock band with drummer Udo Lindenberg, organist Jean-Jacques Kravetz, bassist Karl-Heinz Schott, and singers Inga Rumpf and Dagmar Krause. When Lindenberg left for a solo career, Rumpf, Kravetz, and Schott regrouped with drummer Carsten Bohn.

The reconfigured band (named as a spin on Inga’s surname) favored a post-psychedelic hard-rock sound that edged out Krause, who surfaced in Slapp Happy, a multi-national cabaret-pop trio that later merged with Henry Cow. However, each singer occupies a side of I.D. Company, a 1970 release on the Hör Zu Black Label. Inga’s half (Die Eine Seite) contains three songs: “Bhagavad Gita,” “Bum-Bum,” and “I Watched the Women.”

In mid-1970, Frumpy appeared at the Ostseehalle for the Kiel Progressive Pop Festival, a two-day event (July 4–5) with sets by Tomorrow’s Gift, two unsigned bands (Sphinx Tush, Beatique in Corporation), and the English acts Black Sabbath, Groundhogs, and Hardin & York. Numbers from the aforementioned German acts (plus non-attendees Thrice Mice) appear on the 1970 MCA release Pop & Blues Festival ’70, a live double-album falsely attributed to the April Essener Pop and Blues Festival, which featured no actual German acts. The album includes early renditions of two eventual Frumpy album tracks: “Floating” (12:14) and “Duty” (7:35).

Frumpy made their second major appearance at the Open Air Love & Peace Festival, a three-day event (September 4–6) at Flügge Beach on the Baltic island of Fehmarn. Posters for the event advertised multiple no-shows, including Cactus, Colosseum, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Greatest Show On Earth, Incredible String Band, John Mayall, Kevin Ayers, Peter Green, Procol Harum, Robert Wyatt, and Ten Years After. Renaissance appeared for Friday’s show but cancelled their set due to rain.

Acts that did perform on Fehmarn included Cravinkel, Embryo, Floh de Cologne, Limbus 4, Thrice Mice, Rote Steine, Denmark’s Burnin Red Ivanhoe, and the English acts Fotheringay and the John Surman Trio. Frumpy appeared on Saturday (9/5), which also featured Cluster and Peter Brotzmann among a slew of English acts (Aardvark, Fat Mattress, Ginger Baker’s Air Force, Keef Hartley Band, Mungo Jerry, Rod Stewart & Faces) and American performers (Canned Heat, Sly & the Family Stone). The event is notable for the 9/6 set by Jimi Hendrix, who performed with the Cry of Love Band in his final concert appearance (twelve days before his death in London).

At this stage, Frumpy belonged to a post-psych coterie of guitar-free bands (Aardvark, ELP, Quatermass, Van der Graaf Generator, early Atomic Rooster). Kravetz compensated the instrument’s absence with thick layers of Hammond organ, played through a Leslie rotating speaker system.

All Will Be Changed

Frumpy released their debut album, All Will Be Changed, in October 1970 on Philips.

Both sides contain two-part Inga Rumpf numbers (“Rosalie” and “Floating”) bisected with respective Kravetz compositions (“Otium” and “Baroque”). Rumpf also contributed “Morning” and co-wrote “Life Without Pain” and “Floating” (both parts) with outside collaborator Robert Coules.

Side A includes the Richie Havens cover “Indian Rope Man,” the subject of 1969–71 interpretations by Julie Driscoll & Trinity, Warm Dust, McPhee, and Noir.

Rumpf and bassist Karl-Heinz Schott supplement Carsten Bohn on percussion across All Will Be Changed, which features Kravetz on Hammond, piano, mellotron, saxophone, and the spinet, a small 18th-century case instrument of the harpsichord family.

A1. “Life Without Pain” (3:45)
A2. “Rosalie, Part 1” (5:54)
A3. “Otium” (4:23)
A4. “Rosalie, Part 2” (4:10)
A5. “Indian Rope Man” (3:17)

B1. “Morning” (3:20)
B2. “Floating, Part 1” (7:33)
B3. “Baroque” (7:33)
B4. “Floating, Part 2” (1:23)

Sessions occurred in August 1970 at Phonogram Studio locations in Germany (Hamburg) and the Netherlands (Hilversum). Frumpy recorded the album with Philips staff producer Rainer Goltermann, who worked in succession on the debut by label-mates Cravinkel. All Will Be Changed was engineered by Dutchman Gerard J. Beckers (After Tea, Ekseption, Groep 1850, Golden Earring) and Hamburg schlager soundman Hans-Georg Dozel.

Philips graphic illustrator Klaus Witt designed the All Will Be Changed gatefold, which features vertical color swathes (blue, red, yellow) overlaid with a plastic silk-screened reptile. The inner-gates show the group’s facial outlines embedded in two-tone line waves.

In June 1971, Philips lifted “Life Without Pain” as a single (b/w “Morning”). Meanwhile, Frumpy hired a fifth member: guitarist Rainer Baumann from Kiel performers Sphinx Tush. Frumpy performed “Indian Rope Man” and two upcoming album tracks (“Take Care of Illusion,” “How the Gypsy Was Born”) against a dayglo green-screen on the Radio Bremen music program Beat-Club.

2

Frumpy released their second album, 2, in August 1971 on Philips.

The album contains four long songs: Inga Rumpf’s “Good Winds” and three jams co-composed by Kravetz: the Kiel-performed “Duty” (extended here) and the two original Beat-Club numbers.

Inga triples on percussion and acoustic guitar, a complement to new member Rainer Baumann. Musically, 2 consists of organ-dominated heavy-psych excursions that bridge the earlier soul-rock jams of Driscoll/Auger/Trinity and the recent Hammond hard-rock of Murphy Blend, Nosferatu, and Orange Peel.

A1. “Good Winds” (10:11)
A2. “How the Gypsy Was Born” (8:53)
B1. “Take Care of Illusion” (7:38)
B2. “Duty” (12:14)

Rainer Goltermann produced 2 in sequence with 1971 Philips titles by Eiliff and Weed. 2 first appeared on green/black and blue/black spattered vinyl in a six-fold circular cover with a sphere for each member, backed with lyrics.

Frumpy followed 2 with a September 1971 standalone single comprised of two Rumpf originals:

A. “Roadriding” (3:55)
B. “Time Makes Wise” (2:45)

In early 1972, Kravetz left Frumpy and recorded a solo album, backed by Udo Lindenberg with vocals by Inga on “I’d Like to Be a Child Again,” a slow, heavy, dramatic organ epic. Frumpy entered the studio with Murphy Blend organist Erwin Kania but welcomed back Kravitz before sessions concluded on their next album.

By the Way

Frumpy released their third album, By the Way, in July 1972 on Vertigo.

Inga Rumpf composed the album’s bookend songs (“Goin’ to the Country,” “Keep On Going”) and co-wrote other tracks with Rainer Baumann (“Singing Songs”) and Carsten Bohn (“By the Way,” “Release”). Kravetz collaborated with the latter pair on “I’m Afraid, Big Moon.”

Baumann plays electric and steel guitar on By the Way, which features keyboardist Erwin Kania throughout apart from the Kravetz co-write.

A1. “Goin’ to the Country” (3:40)
A2. “By the Way” (8:51)
A3. “Singing Songs” (7:03)
B1. “I’m Afraid, Big Moon” (6:26)
B2. “Release” (8:51)
B3. “Keep On Going” (5:23)

Sessions occurred in March 1972 in Hamburg at Windrose-Dumont-Time-Studio, where Frumpy co-produced the album with Silberbart engineer Thomas Kukuck, who also worked on Kravetz and the third Birth Control album, Hoodoo Man.

By the Way appeared in a simple black sleeve with an upside view of Inga in a live hair toss and a lyrical backside. Soon after sessions wrapped, Baumann announced his solo ambitions. Frumpy played their farewell concert days ahead of the release on June 26, 1972, with Udo guitarist Thomas Kretschmer. They also performed “Goin’ to the Country” and “By the Way” for the June 24 Beat-Club broadcast.

Live

In 1973, Philips issued Live, a two-record document of three Frumpy concerts between their second and third albums.

Live sources shows in Hamburg* (September 28, 1971), Bielefeld** (December 12, 1971), and Bünde (April 9, 1972). The album presents extended renditions of material from 2 (“Duty*” “Take Care of Illusion**”), By the Way (“Keep On Going,” “Singing Songs,” “Release**”), and a Bessie Smith cover (“Backwater Blues*”), plus the exclusive group-written jam “To My Mother.”

A1. “Keep On Going” (12:04)
A2. “Singing Songs” (8:53)
B1. “Backwater Blues” (4:55)
B2. “Duty” (17:33)

C. “Release” (21:55)
D1. “Take Care of Illusion” (8:54)
D2. “To My Mother” (11:28)

Live appeared in a sepia gatefold with German liner notes by Gabriele Fiebelkorn.

Post-Frumpy

Inga Rumpf, Jean-Jacques Kravetz, and Karl-Heinz Schott, regrouped as Atlantis, a progressive soul-rock band with Armaggedon guitarist Frank Diez and ubiquitous jazz-rock drummer Curt Cress. Amid multiple lineup changes, Atlantis made four studio albums between 1972 and 1975 on Vertigo. In 1974, Kravetz reappeared as 8 Days In April on Fontana.

Inga went solo with the 1975 Philips release Second-Hand Madchen. In 1989, Rumpf, Kravetz, and Carsten Bohn regrouped as Frumpy for a two-album run.

Discography: