German folk music legend Heino at 80
Signature sunglasses and platinum blond hair — Heino looks back at decades of folk and German pop music, and more recently, a foray into heavy metal. At age 80, he is a veritable music legend in the country.
The boy with the guitar
Heino's career took off in 1967 when he was in his late 20s. The baritone with the rolling R's cheerfully belted out traditional German Schlager folk and pop songs, adding one hit tune to the next. Songs including "Karamba, Karacho, ein Whisky" gave Germans a sense of an ideal, carefree world in an era of upheaval and counterculture movements.
The one and only 'real Heino'
In the 1980s, a Berlin punk singer named Norbert Hähnel (middle upper row, with fans) toured as "The real Heino," among other gigs as the opening act for the Toten Hosen punk rock band. Heino, not amused, got a provisional injunction banning Hähnel from performing as a Heino look-alike — which hasn't kept people from donning a wig and sunglasses and posing as Heino to this day.
Coffee, cake and a song
A new attraction came to Bad Münstereifel when Heino opened a café in the picturesque spa town in western Germany in 1996. A baker by trade, the German pop music star had always dreamed of owning a cafe. Occasionally, he would even bake or sing for his customers. The cafe was forced to make way for an outlet store in 2012.
Heino goes Wacken
In 2013, Heino was almost 75 years old when he left his comfort zone to stand onstage at the Wacken open air festival, joining Rammstein in singing their hit "Sonne" to 75,000 metalheads. Rammstein had invited the bard in response to his cover version of the song.
New star on the metal scene
Influenced by his Wacken experience, Heino released an album in 2014 that presented a retrospective of his smash folk hits in a loud, massive heavy-metal style, the cover shows him seated on a throne with skulls, wearing rocker gear — neatly parted signature blond hair, sunglasses and all.
Back to the roots
Heino has since returned to his roots and singing in his time-honored style. At a congress in March 2018, he presented Ina Scharrenbach, homeland minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), with his 1981 "best-of" album compiling German traditional folk music.