Guckenheimer Sour Kraut Band

The Guckenheimer Sour Kraut Band was a humorous musical group of amateur musicians living in the San Francisco, California, area who played a repertoire of polkas and light classical music while adopting a persona of mild confusion and wearing self-created uniforms once described as rejects from the Franco-Prussian War. The group originally formed one Christmas season in 1949 to play carols in Sausalito, California, and someone brought a book of polka music, possibly one of the "Hungry Five" books by Harry L. Alford whose music became a basic part of the Guckenheimer repertoire. The group became increasingly popular in northern California, often invited to play at wine festivals and openings and in later years for such august occasions as opening night of the San Francisco Symphony.
Although all were business professionals, the group joined Local 6 of the American Federation of Musicians and became "professional musicians" when they were invited by San Francisco Records to make its first record album, "Oom-Pah-Pah In Hi-Fi"—described on its front cover as "The sourest German village band music ever!" Although the group played for laughs, all its members were quite adequate musicians, some of them very good. The occasional native German-born listener would often remark on the Guckenheimers' similarity to actual village bands back in the old country. The village band sound was authentic enough RCA Victor signed the group to record a second album, "Sour Kraut In Hi Fi" (LPM-1453)
The name of the group was taken from an obscure brand of whiskey and adopted by the group's leader, Richard B. Gump, who took on the persona of Herr Doktor Fritz Guckenheimer, Kapellmeister. All of the other band members adopted names that were some variant of Schmidt.
Gump was a San Francisco art dealer and owner of Gump's store in downtown San Francisco, which was also the recording location of their best known record album for RCA Victor Records "Music For Non-Thinkers" (LSP/LPM 1721), which was recorded on Sunday, December 29, 1957, in stereo. It was released in 1958. It was re-released on an unknown date, and kept the original stereo catalog number, but adopted a new per-side catalog number as well, J2PY-2451/J2PY-2452.
Personnel.
Earlier band members, before the records were made, included Esquire writer Barney Harrold, cabinetmaker George Phoedovius, designer George Ashley and business executive Harry Mohler.
George Lichty created the cover art for the first two albums, both being comic representations of the band in Lichty's inimitable cartoon style including the "Gückenheimer Über Alles" legend on the bass drum. The third album's cover was a photograph of the band, or at least eight members of it as (according to a note on the reverse side) "Johann Sebastian Schmidtz III was not present -- he overslept." There was, however, a ninth character on the cover, as the band was arrayed before a casting of the famous "The Thinker" statue by Auguste Rodin on display at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. The statue, wearing earmuffs, is identified as an "unmoved sitting bystander."
On the second album, Gump—or rather, Herr Doktor Guckenheimer—wrote a short note addressed to "Dear Music-Lovers:"
Discography and track listings.
San Francisco Records TM-5 "Oom-Pah-Pah in HiFi", 1956 (San Francisco Records was later taken over by Barbary Coast Records, which gave it the catalog number BC-33005).
Side 1
Side 2
RCA Victor LP 1453: "Sour Kraut in Hi-Fi", 1957
Side 1
Side 2
RCA Victor also made a 45 rpm Extended Play version of Sour Kraut In Hi-Fi (EPS 1-1453) which has four selections:
RCA Victor LPM-1721: "Music For Non-Thinkers", 1958
Side 1
Side 2