Ute Lemper Sings

White text on a black background with a green stripe that goes behind the word SINGS.

Ute Lemper is a popular singer and actress born in Germany. In Germany, Lemper is very popular as a stage actor and as a musical singer for the German version of many English musicals. She has produced an extensive number of albums and is most well known in the United States for her renditions of Kurt Weill's work. In 1987 she release Ute Lemper Sings Kurt Weill and in 1993 released Ute Lemper Singer Kurt Weill - Volume 2. Inside of the music industry, Lemper is well respect as is obvious from her 2000 release Punishing Kiss which features original songs written by Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and others.

Kurt Weill, the man whose music Ute Lemper performed, was a German composer who lived through the first half of the 20th century. Throughout the 20s and 30s Weill was massively popular as a stage composer - his influence living on in a number of performers. In 1933 during the Nazi occupation of Germany, Weill fled to the United States and began to work on famous pieces such as "Down in the Valley" up until his death in 1950. The popular Doors song "Alabama Song" is actually a Kurt Weill composition produced for Mahagonny.