For his dialect blues and rock, the Austrian singer Willi Resetarits was known as "Ostbahn-Kurti" - now the musician has died at the age of 73. He died on Sunday by an accident in his home. He started his career in the late 60's as a member of Schmetterlinge a political agitating band. They got country-wide known as they represented Austria in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1977 where less people understood the irony in their song about commercial mass compatible songs. Since the eighties Resetarits, switched to lead vocals and harmonica, portrayed the rock'n "roll art figure Ostbahn Kurti. He invented the fictional biography of the forgotten Viennese suburban rock'n' roller with proletarian pride, slippery street-smart Viennese wordplay and earthy interpretations of great post-sixties blues and rock classics in the Viennese dialect, including his versions of several songs by Bruce Fire ("Feia"), Townes Van Zandt's "At my Window" (Liagn and lochn) and songs by Dave Edmunds, ZZ Top, Steve Miller or Frank Zappa. In recent years he has been very committed to social projects and became one of the most humorous and therefore most credible and vocal speakers for integration and dignified dealings with refugees and minorities of the republic. He was not a phenomenal musician or songwriter but beyond doubt a very good live artist and I can bear witness when I saw him several times live with his band during the last decades.
Rest easy Willi
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