Idol and inspiration for so many of my favourite artists - Kander & Ebb, Marc Almond, Scott Walker and David Bowie to name but a few - the genius that was Bertolt Brecht was born 110 years ago today.
A poet first and foremost, Bertolt Brecht's genius was for language, and he was prolific in his expression of this talent. Amongst his classics was The Threepenny Opera, which gave birth to one of the 20th Century's great standards Mack The Knife, and a later collaboration with Kurt Weill, Mahagonny famously upset the Nazis with its decadent Left-leaning sympathies.
Brecht's influence can be seen in the cinema - filmmakers as Lars Von Trier, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Jean-Luc Godard were influenced by his ideals and his style, but it was this same subversive quality that began to upset his adopted homeland of America in the McCarthy witch-hunt era, and he ended up living the rest of his life in Communist East Berlin.
But his legacy carries on well into the 21st Century - Marianne Faithfull recorded his Seven Deadly Sins and continues to perform his works, and Patti Smith included an evening in tribute to Brecht in her "Meltdown" series of concerts in 2005 [which we went to see - it featured Marc Almond, Antony of the Johnsons, Dresden Dolls, Tilda Swinton, Tiger Lillies, Neil Finn, Sparks, Fiona Shaw and Martha Wainwright on the bill, and it was fab!].
Enjoy this performance of one of the sleaziest songs from The Threepenny Opera performed at the 2006 Tony Awards - by none other than our own Alan Cumming duetting with... Cyndi Lauper! Genius, indeed.
Bertolt Brecht on Wikipedia
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