Michael Holm
Encyclopedia
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
singer
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
, musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
, songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
and producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
.
He is primarily known as a Schlager singer
Schlager
Schlager music is a style of popular music prevalent in Central and Northern Europe and the Balkans and also in France and Poland. In Portugal, it was adapted and became pimba music...
. Although his first appearance in the hit parade
Hit parade
A hit parade is a ranked list of the most popular recordings at a given point in time, usually determined by sales and/or airplay. The term originated in the 1930s; Billboard magazine published its first music hit parade on January 4, 1936...
was in 1962 ("Lauter Schöne Worte"), he had his first big hit
Hit record
A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...
in 1969. "Mendocino", the German adaptation of a song by the Sir Douglas Quintet
Sir Douglas Quintet
Sir Douglas Quintet was a rock band active in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Despite their British sounding name, they came out of San Antonio, Texas. Their career was established when they began working with Texas record-producer Huey P. Meaux, after which the band relocated to the West Coast...
, was the biggest selling single that year in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. The record was released in September 1969, reached number three for five weeks, selling over a million copies.
Ariola
Ariola Records
Ariola Records is a German record label. As of the late 1980s, it was a subsidiary label of BMG which in turn has since become a part of the international media conglomerate Sony Music Entertainment...
presented him with a gold record
Music recording sales certification
Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...
in October 1970.
Further hits such as "Barfuß im Regen" (1970), "Tränen lügen nicht" (literally, "Tears Don't Lie", recorded in English as "When A Child Is Born
When a Child Is Born
"When a Child is Born" is a popular Christmas song. The original melody was "Soleado", a tune from 1972 by Ciro Dammicco , composer for the Italian group Daniel Santecruz Ensemble. The English language lyrics were written later by Fred Jay....
") (1974) and "Musst Du jetzt gerade gehen, Lucille" (1977) followed. He also composed
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
the music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
for the popular international horror
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
movie
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
, Mark of the Devil (1970). Outside of Germany, he is best known for his work as a member of the new age band
Musical ensemble
A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...
, Cusco
Cusco (band)
The following note applies to many of the individual album pages as well, though they are not individually tagged:Cusco is a German andean new age band named after the Peruvian city of Cusco, which at one time was the capital city of the ancient Incan Empire...
, along with Kristian Schultze
Kristian Schultze
Kristian Schultze was one half of the German New Age band Cusco. Schultze has partnered up with Michael Holm and the two have produced numerous new age albums...
.
He was three times nominated for the American Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
.