Hans Stamer
(b. 1938, Hamburg, Germany)
At a young age, Hans Stamer discovered jazz, blues and the music of Django Reinhart, which inspired him to play guitar and pursue a career in music as a frontman and vocalist. He was also fortunate to see artists such as Louis Armstrong and other jazz and blues greats that were touring through Europe. Hans’s great singing voice, and harmonica and guitar playing helped him develop into a multi–talented artist who made his mark on Edmonton for decades. He studied the craft of goldsmithing for five years –a trade he still practices today—before moving to Canada in 1962 and making his home in Edmonton.
Hans began to explore the local music scene performing blues and folksongs in the style of Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie while playing 12-string guitar. Hans formed his first band in 1964/65 consisting of Jerry Ford on sax, Al Gerrardin on drums, Rich Terry on bass and Archie Southern on guitar. This band morphed into The Famous Last Words which toured the Prairies until it broke up in 1967. Many blues aficionados of the Edmonton blues scene will say that this was the first blues band in the River City and is always mentioned in the same sentence with Hot Cottage in regards to their place in the development of blues in Edmonton.
Hans then formed the The Mighty Preachers in 1967 with Rich Terry, Archie Southern, Dennis Ferby, Stu Mitchell on drums and the extremely gifted Gaye Delorme on guitar. In 1968, he moved to BC and formed Django, followed by The Hans Staymer Band — adding a “Y” to his surname as it was often mispronounced. Band members included the extraordinarily talented Eddie Paterson on guitar. The band recorded a classic album in 1972 featuring the hit Dig a Hole. This record is very rare, but can be heard today on YouTube where it has received thousands of hits.
In 1997, Hans teamed up with Andreas Schuld to form an acoustic blues duo Schuld & Stamer. Their first album, No Special Rider recorded with Edmonton’s Bill Bourne, received a 1997 Juno nomination for Best Blues album. Schuld & Stamer also did an album with the legendary Long John Baldry titled You Get the Bread and We Got the Jam.
During his illustrious career, Hans has performed with some of the finest blues musicians around, most notably Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, John Lee Hooker, Kenny Blues Boss Wayne and Long John Baldry, among many others. The Brouhaha All-Star Revue, featuring Hans Stamer and Kenny Wayne were invited to perform at the inaugural Edmonton Blues Festival in 1999. Hans no longer performs live, but is still active in the recording studio, putting out a number of CDs, the most recent being Schuld & Stamer’s Kuddelmuddel released in 2014. It is an honour and a great pleasure to have Hans Stamer inducted into the Edmonton Blues Hall of Fame for 2015.