Götz Alsmann

Götz Alsmann was born in Münster on 12 July 1957. As a teenager he already played piano, mandolin and banjo in the Heupferd Jug Band; from 1977 he studied German philology, journalism and musicology at the University of Münster and took his doctorate in 1985. Since 1980 he has appeared on stage with groups of his own, first with The Sentimental Pounders and later with the Götz Alsmann Band. As a singer and multi-instrumentalist he joins jazz, Schlager, chanson, swing and popular music history; at the same time he has shaped radio and television for decades, not least with WDR formats such as *Zimmer frei!* and *WDR 3 Persönlich*.