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ZUM TOD VON ASCHI MAURER

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Mit Nilly auf einer Cruise von Delbert McClinton

ASCHI MAURER

28. Januar 1939 – 25. August 2017

Am 25. August verstarb Aschi Maurer an den Folgen eines Krebsleidens.

Aschi Maurer hat die Schweizer Country- und Americana Szene geprägt, wie kein anderer.

Mit seinem Singer-Songwriter Festival in Frutigen hat er während Jahren amerikanischen Musikern Gelegenheit geboten, sich in der Schweiz zu präsentieren.

Beachtlich, wen Aschi durch dieses Festival alles in die Schweiz brachte: Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, Dwight Yoakam, Lyle Lovett, George Jones, Steve Earle, John Prine, Reba McEntyre, Delbert McClinton, Gary Nicholson, Stephen Bruton, Charlie & Will Sexton, Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Kevin Welch, Nanci Griffith, Dave Dudley, Tom Russel, Rosie Flores,  Brooks & Dunn, Lee Roy Parnell, Little Texas, Buddy Miller, Jim Lauderdale, The Mavericks, Marcia Ball, Jo-el Sonnier, Calvin Russel, Sir Douglas Quintett, The Subdudes, Jimmy Lafave, Vince Gill, Aleep At The Wheel, Michelle Shocked, buckwheat Zydeco, Dan Baird, Kacey Jones, David Lindley, Sonny Landreth, Iris de Ment, Billy Joe Shaver, Jayhawks, Todd Snider, Mike Henderson, Rodney Crowell, Rosanne Cash, Texana Dames, Hel Ketchum, Patty Loveless, Kimmie Rhodes etc. sie spielten entweder in Frutigen oder wurden durch Aschi an andere Grossevents wie z.B. Country Night Gstaad vermittelt.

mit Willie Nelson

  

mit Nilly und Kris Kristofferson

DRS3, damals noch sehr musikaffin, übertrug regelmässig die Konzerte, was viel zur grossen Popularität der Veranstaltung beitrug.

Aschi hatte beruflich und später auch familiär immer einen heissen Draht nach Austin, einer der Musikhochburgen der USA. Und dort aquirierte er die Musiker für sein Festival. Das heisst, am Schluss meldeten sie sich von selber und wollten wieder im Berner Oberland spielen.

Nach dem Ende des Festivals blieb Aschi der Musik verbunden und war des öftern als Tourmanager amerikanischer Künstler in der Schweiz und im benachbarten Ausland unterwegs.

Aschi war in der amerikanischen Singer-Songwriter Szene bekannt wie ein bunter Hund. Das konnte ich mehrmals selber miterleben, als wir gemeinsam auf der Cruise von Delbert McClinton waren. Aschi kannten einfach alle.

Davon zeugt auch ein Foto, welches während der Dreharbeiten zur Dokumentation „Road To Austin“ entstand. Alle Stars sitzen und stehen da im Halbkreis und mittenddrin Aschi Maurer aus Frutigen. Mein absolutes Lieblingsbild von Aschi.

Nebst seiner Begeisterung für die Musik, war er ein unwahrscheinlich liebenswürdiger Mensch. Man musste ihn einfach gerne haben.

Am Bluesfestival Baden 2017 traf ich Aschi zum letzten Mal. Er war guter Dinge und wir hatten einen vergnüglichen Abend.

Umso überraschender kam dann die Nachricht seines Todes.

Mit Aschi Maurer ist ein Musikliebhaber alter Schule gestorben.

R.I.P. Aschi

  

Und hier gibt es einige spannende Videos zum Thema Singer Songwriter Festival Frutigen.

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

Auf Facebook hat Elia Norton folgenden berührenden Nachruf veröffentlicht:

“We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best that we find in our travels is an honest friend.”
– Robert Louis Stevenson

It is with great sadness that we mourn the loss of everyone’s number one fan, Aschi Maurer. On Thursday morning Aschi slipped into a coma, and by Friday afternoon, surrounded by his family, he peacefully passed. 

Aschi was a friend to all and a stranger to none. He was the ultimate optimist with an ability to make chicken salad out of chicken shit. Aschi was resilient and always persevered through tragedies, a trait he had to assume early on as an orphan with Rickets disease during childhood. He was a talented artist with a knack for drawing beautiful and strikingly lifelike portraits of celebrities, family members, and friends. If you had the opportunity to know Aschi, you knew of his amazing travels all around the world. From the Caribbean to the Middle East to the Americas, he wanted to soak up all the culture and interact with all the locals. 

In 1963 while Aschi was building the Port of Eilat in Israel, he met Nilly who would quickly become the love of his life. He never wanted to be apart from her, so much so that her picture is always on the dashboard of his 1977 Chevy Monte Carlo. Everywhere he went he was vocal about his admiration and pride for Nilly. He bragged about his wife, his love of 51 years any chance that he could, and the two proudly showed their affection whenever they were together. If you ask their children and grandchildren, there was no purer love than that of Aschi and Nilly. 

Aschi was born into a family with ten siblings and lost his mother at eleven after she battled Tuberculosis for two years. As a result the children were split up and sent off to earn food, so at thirteen Aschi worked as a farm hand in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. His dream was to become a car mechanic, but when that did not work out for him he packed his bags for Zurich. There he found an opportunity to see the world as a sailor. After his two-year stint sailing from Europe to the caribbean and the Pacific Ocean, Aschi enrolled in an apprenticeship program for welding and was hired by the Losinger Firm in Switzerland, where he worked for 25 years. By age 24 he was in charge of 24 men building the Port of Eilat. While at Losinger, he was the first graduate to earn an applied technical engineering diploma and became a drilling foreman. In his limited spare time he opened two hip clothing boutiques with his wife Nilly, in Frutigen and Adelboden. The boutique, which stayed open for 25 years, was the first to sell Levi’s Jeans in Frutigen. Aschi then started organizing fashion shows with live music for the store. In short, he founded the talent platform “The Stars Factory” with a group of friends which became the base for Aschi’s passion in life, organizing music festivals.

In the early eighties these small talent shows evolved into one of Switzerland’s first country music festival. Later it mushroomed into the Singer Songwriter Festival in Frutigen, a household name. During this time “King Aschi’s” accolades included founding and leading the Country Music Federation of Switzerland (CMFS) for many years, becoming a voting member of the Country Music Awards (CMA) in Nashville, being recognized by the Texas Music Office under the former Texas Governor for Aschi’s contribution to country music, and developing the Americana music scene in Switzerland. The festival put Frutigen, Switzerland on the map and those in the business knew of the Frutigen Festival just as the film industry knows of Sundance; Aschi turned a quiet mountain town into the Mecca of Americana music in Europe. His skills and network at this time were well sought after as he worked for other promoters like the Country Night Gstaad, booking well-known acts for Switzerland such as Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Dwight Yoakam, Lyle Lovett, George Jones, Steve Earle, John Prine, Reba McEntyre, and far too many more to mention. Aschi never really retired, acting as a road manager up until January of 2017 for his son’s agency. He truly never stopped living, packing every bit of life into each minute, and to say Aschi was 78 when he passed is not giving him enough credit.

This picture is a favorite among family as it embodies who Aschi was: arms always stretched wide to welcome anyone into his life, a big smile to show you that life is too good to waste, wearing a Texas t-shirt where Aschi made a second home, and on the stage where he shined the brightest.

The funeral will be held at the churchyard of Frutigen on Friday, September 1st at 11am (open casket). In Aschi Maurer fashion, the family will be holding a “One More Time” concert at Hotel Simplon in Frutigen on Wednesday, September 6th at 6pm with various musicians. Together we will celebrate Aschi’s life and spirit. If you would like to participate, contact robi.maurer@intermusic.ch or daliahmaurer@msn.com 

In loving memory of Ernst “Aschi” Maurer, beloved husband to Nilly, father to Robi, Daliah, and Rafi, grandfather to Elia, Emanuel, and Samuel, son of Robert and Rosa, brother and an honest friend to all.

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