LPs 1970-1979

This period of his musical career was undoubtedly his busiest as apart from producing 50 LPs he was also undertaking personal tours, and additionally developing his legendary Pop Organ Sound, which first makes its appearance on HITS AGAIN Vol 5. The Hammond Pops series ran for 10 volumes. Volume 10 was unique inasmuch as it was the only one marketed in a heavy duty gatefold sleeve: one half of which contained thumbnail shots of others in the series, together with a full size 12"x12" portrait of a very young smartly dressed Klaus Wunderlich.

There were 7 volumes to the WUNDERLICH POPS series:. HITS AGAIN ran to 5 volumes although the first was never given a volume number. POLKA POPS & POPS INTERNATIONAL only ran to two volumes each.

In this period he also made perhaps one of his most unusual, but equally delightful LPs, that of DREAM CONCERTO. It was the only time he worked exclusively with Hohner instruments, and one has to say they have never sounded better. Perhaps one oddment in terms of advertising is THE PHASE FOUR WORLD OF KLAUS WUNDERLICH, because apart from it being a direct copy of HAMMOND SENSATION & ORGANIZED, both released in 1968, it now bears his rightful name, but nowhere on the sleeve or the label does it indicate the instrument he’s playing. Having said that perhaps Decca thought with a ‘cheescake’ sleeve nobody would be bothered anyway! Ironically she was once the girl friend of organist/keyboard player Rick Wakeman and her name is Nikki Carter. It was also a period when he produced two ‘play along’ releases complete with full size 12” x 12” music books. Should you ever buy copies, it is worth making sure that these rare books are included...especially if you are a player yourself. The 70s saw Klaus making several recordings for the German Wersi organ company who were early pioneers of instruments built in kit pack form. These LPs were not generally available in the High Street shops, but supplied to Wersi franchised dealers. KELLER PARTY is interesting inasmuch that the original LP version was thought never to have been released in the UK. It is also the only cartoon type sleeve in his output, and features piano duo Emil & Alfons Klingelberger ...alias Klaus Wunderlich! The tunes, with the exception of track 1 Side A, all appear in identical medley format on WUNDERLICH POPS 1 / 2 / 3 and HITS AGAIN 5. It would seem that in his studio mix-down for the KELLERPARTY release, Klaus simply faded down the organ sounds leaving only the drums & percussion tracks. As he always commenced his recording sessions with the rhythm tracks, to this ‘time signal’ track he simply added two piano tracks to achieve the duet. It is too much of a co-incidence to think that he recorded new rhythm tracks in view of complete identical listings and sequences. Also, played back side by side: i.e. to do an A and B comparison, the rhythm is identical. The odd track out is Trk 1 Side A where FOX ON THE RUN has been removed from Trk 4 Side B of WUNDERLICH POPS 3 and edited to TANGO AMORE which is the second item of Trk 2 Side A on the same LP. By placing the finished KELLERPARTY tracks in a different running order he was able to produce a brand new release relatively easy and quickly. It was eventually released Worldwide by Bell Musik in CD format in 2007.