1965 Horst Jankowski – A Walk In The Black Forest
Not many oldies fans would show much interest in a song entitled Eine Schwarzwaldfahrt, which also explains why the title of the song got translated when it was released in the US.
Horst Jankowski was born in 1936 grew up in Berlin. He attended the Berlin Music Conservatory and focused on playing the piano. His genre of choice was jazz. He became the bandleader for the Italian/French singer Caterina Valente.
Google translates the title of his one-hit wonder as “A Black Forest Ride,” so the title used for the song isn’t too far off: A Walk In The Black Forest. Horst composed the instrumental, led the orchestra, and played piano on the record. The single reached #12 on the Hot 100 in 1965. It sold over a million copies, aided perhaps by reaching the top of the Adult Contemporary chart.
The single figured in a television show. The BBC broadcast the show The Goodies from 1970 to 1982 that featured a hapless trio that often were reduced to slapstick antics. The episode Radio Goodies had the men starting their own pirate radio station that broadcast from a submarine. Unfortunately, after they began broadcasting, they discovered they only had one record to play: A Walk In The Black Forest. Out of necessity, it became all ten of the records in the station’s top ten.
Horst had one other single reach the Hot 100, but Simpel Gimpel only spent a week at #91 and immediately fell off the chart. In spite of his inability to score additional hit singles in the US, Horst released several dozen successful albums. His focus once again became jazz in the seventies rather than pop or easy listening music.
Horst died in 1998.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Jankowski
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