Achim Reichel

German singer, songwriter, musician, and producer Achim Reichel enjoyed a long and varied career that began during the beat boom of the '60s, when he founded the Rattles, and carried on well into the next millennium, by which time he was still recording albums and performing large-scale rock concerts. Born on January 28, 1944, in Wentorf bei Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Reichel began his music career in 1960, when he, as a singer/guitarist, formed the Rattles with bassist Herbert Hildebrandt in Hamburg. The band, along with the Lords, proved one of Germany's leading beat bands of the day, for instance touring England with the Rolling Stones in 1963 and touring Germany with the Beatles in 1966. Reichel left the band in 1966 after several albums, including Twist im Star-Club Hamburg (1964), Liverpool Beat (1965), and Hurra! Die Rattles Kommen (1966), and subsequently entered the Bundeswehr (i.e., the German armed forces). Upon Reichel's departure from the military, he formed another band, Wonderland, whose debut single, "Mocow" (1968), was a Top 15 hit. Next he formed the experimental solo project A.R. & Machines, which debuted with Die Grüne Reise (1971) and followed with a succession of Krautrock-fashioned albums: Echo (1972), 3 (1972), 4 (1973), and Autovision (1974).