GISELA MAY
DIE SIEBEN TODSUNDEN DER KLEINBERGER
FIRST PERFORMED 1933
RECORDING 1966
Jim Morrison of The Doors was first and foremost a poet, and one that he admired greatly was Bertolt Brecht, whose “Alabama Song” is given a raunchy, cabaret treatment on the Doors 1st album. This recording of “The Seven Deadly Sins of Small-time Citizens” – a ballet that Brecht wrote with Kurt Weill – came out the year before the Doors first LP, and the sense of sardonic urgency found here had an influence on the entire band. Echoes of “Sins” can be also be heard in Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde as well. Weill – the first classical composer to reject high for low – is a model of crossover before the concept became politically correct.
