Who were Cosa Rosa?
Now, you are probably thinking that I have just made a typing error, and it should read "Who WAS Cosa Rosa". But no! At the outset, at the very least, Cosa Rosa was a duo, though clearly the name is based on Rosemarie's first name. How the name came about, I do not know, but certainly, on the first album, it's very clearly a record made by 2 people. Indeed, there a some tracks on which Rosemarie does not even appear! Why? I'm guessing again, but as she was in Ulla Meinecke's touring band at the time, it is quite possible that she simply wasn't available. A bit like Art Garfunkel's absence during sessions for the "Bridge Over Troubled Water" album, as he was away filming "Catch 22." Rainhold was busy too, recording with Spliff, and producing Nena, but all these tasks were in Berlin, so much easier to fit in.
So, who were
they?
Reinhold Heil
Born
18th May 1954, Reinhold studied at the Berlin University of the Arts,
before starting work professionally in the music business. He has
been a composer, producer, keyboard player and singer, and Reinhold
has been a member of the Nina Hagen Band, Spliff (the same band
without Nina Hagen) Froon, and most recently, the Pale 3, who have
been involved in a lot of film and TV music, as Reinhold moved to
Santa Barbara in the 1990's. He has been nominated for Oscars,and has
won ASCAP awards for the soundtrack of "Without a Trace",
Details of his work in the world of film and TV can be seen here at
IMDB Reinhold
met Rosemarie in the 1970's, and they remained life partners until
her death. As well as having a major influence on her music, he was
clearly a man who was committed to her in life, for while the media
is always full of news of people who do not stick together even when
things are going well, he was around until the tragic end of her
life, and was at her bedside when she passed away. They were
obviously lucky to have found one another, and he is to be praised
for his decency and loyalty.
Born
3rd May, 1952, As almost any website about her will tell you, she was
a qualified Architecht, in fact her qualification was Dipl. Ing.,
short for Diplom-Ingenieur (German equivalent of M.S. degree) and
after qualifying, she worked for the municipal planning office in
Berlin. Perhaps there are buildings there to which she contributed?
Having had piano lessons as a child, she was still interested in
music, and in the confined world of West Berlin in the 1970's and
80's, there would have been ample opportunity to meet like minded
people. So it was that she ended up as the girlfriend of Reinhold,
and gained subsequent exposure to other musicians. As a result she
was asked to join all-female band The Insisters, as keyboard player,
and made one album with them, “Moderne Zeiten” (Modern
Times). Shortly afterwards, Reinhold's fellow band member in Spliff,
drummer Herwig Mitteregger, recommended Rosa to Ulla Meinecke, a well
established German singer, as a keyboard player for her band. She was
given the job, and toured with her, and was also involved in the
making of 3 of her albums, co-writing at least one song, Süße
Sünden (Sweet Sins) with her. She had already been playing her
compositions to Reinhold, and at one point while he was absent for a
tour with Spliff, he showed her how to use a 4 track tape recorder to
multi track her recordings, and when he returned, she surprised him
with several songs completely mixed with keyboards and vocals. As a
successful musician, he would not be easy to impress, but he was so
pleased with her work that he decided she should become a musician in
her own right, not someone else's hired hand. With other work
commitments in both their lives, it was a duo that released the first
album, Traumstation, but as she grew in confidence and experience,
the next 2 were more focused on Rosa, with Reinhold happily taking a
back seat.
Reinhold does not need extra exposure for his talents, he is still exploring new musical avenues even today, but Rosa sadly only got to make a limited impact, and it is because of that fact that I focus more on her input.
A mid-2000's interview with Rienhold gives a much bigger and better background to the story that I can ever give. Read it here at www.deutsche-mugge.de
It was apparently during the recording of “Kein Zufall” that she was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and it is hard to imagine being able to carry on making music while dealing with this. Perhaps it helped keep her mind off her problems, but it's certainly true that her music is brilliantly written, recorded and performed, despite the ordeal. After her third album, she retreated from public life, having already been quite reclusive except for promotional appearances on TV shows, and I would guess her final months would have been unbearable. This particular disease is not an easy one to cope with, and must have been hard for everyone around her, as well. I don't know what the situation was regarding siblings, her parents, or friends, but for those that there were, and for Reinhold, how painful it must have been to see such a brilliant, exceptional person slip away.
