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I was the driver,” says Jürgen at my shop counter. In the 1970s, everyone just called him “the Count” because his last name was reminiscent of an aristocratic politician. At the time, the count worked for concert promoter Fritz Rau and was regularly entrusted with the task of picking up “the ‘artists’, as Fritz always said” from the airport. The Rolling Stones, Queen, Deep Purple, Jethro Tull, The Who, Led Zeppelin – the Count chauffeured them all.
Sometimes there were unplanned trips: “Animals singer Eric Burdon was suddenly thirsty, so I quickly drove with him to the gas station to buy beer,” remembers the Count. And then he raves about a Pink Floyd concert and the almost magical quadrafony sound experience that could already be admired in the 1972 music film “Pink Floyd: Live At Pompeii” – which has only been available on vinyl since this year, remastered by their younger prog rock colleague Steven Wilson.
Like Pink Floyd, Fritz Rau was also a visionary: He organized the first open-air concerts in this country and in 1987 organized 20 special trains, each with 1,000 seats, that traveled from all over Germany to an exclusive Madonna show in Frankfurt am Main. Anyone who thinks of Udo and Pankow when they hear “Sonderzug” can go straight back to Rau without having to change trains: he played himself in Lindenberg’s film “Panic Times” (1980). And Frank Zappa immortalized Rau in his song “Shall We Take Ourselves Seriously?”
Late re-encounter with Ian Anderson
In August 2025, Count Ian Anderson met again in Bad Nauheim after half a century. The 78-year-old and his band Jethro Tull played a concert in the spa town in the evening. Amateur photographer Anderson was out with his Leica camera when the count spoke to him. They chatted about old times and took a selfie together, which the Count showed me in the store a few days later. Wikipedia writes about Anderson: “His flute playing is characterized by overblowing, fluttering (…) and even grunting.”
Speaking of which: I recently received a vinyl delivery from England that was padded with butcher bags, another LP was put in a frozen pizza box for shipping. Not to forget the bundle that arrived in a “The Real Scout” collection folder from the early 1990s, model “Delfin”.
A couple from Mannheim who released the EP “Our Love Goes Deeper Than This” by Duke Special feat. Neil Hannon reported an astonishing sight: their Spanish neighbor had wanted to point out in the apartment building’s chat group that the wall in the backyard had collapsed. He wrote the monumental sentence: “The wall has fallen!” Even greater than the amusement of this news was the surprise the next morning: Nathalie and Daniel’s bedroom balcony was now in an involuntary view of the window of a recording studio. And then they spotted Konstantin Gropper’s striking face!
The name of his band Get Well Soon fits the fact that Villa Hansa records As a spa town shop, it is often visited by rehabilitation patients. Some just want an Elvis souvenir, for others music is so relevant to convalescence that vinyl should be available on prescription.
A record collector from Berlin became deaf after an accident, but was able to hear again thanks to an implant. He bought the single “Free Me” by Uriah Heep. The Count probably once chauffeured this band too.