Franzl Lang

Franzl Lang
Born	Franz Lang (1930-12-28)28 December 1930 Munich, Bavaria, Weimar Republic
Died	6 December 2015(2015-12-06) (aged 84) Munich, Bavaria, Germany
Cause of death	Multiple organ dysfunction syndrome
Other names	Yodelking (Jodlerkönig)
Years active	1957–2015

Franz "Franzl" Lang (28 December 1930 – 6 December 2015), known as the Yodel King (German: Jodlerkönig), was a yodeller from Bavaria, Germany. Lang also sang and played the guitar and the accordion and was the author of several books on yodelling. Lang's genre is German folk music; he typically sang in the Bavarian dialect of the rural Alpine regions.

By general consensus, Lang was considered to be the best Alpine yodeller in the world.

Career

Raised in Munich, Lang trained as a toolmaker. He started playing his trademark accordion at the age of nine. His greatest hit was his 1968 recording of Karl Ganzer's composition "Das Kufsteiner Lied". Throughout the 1970s, he was a permanent feature of musical variety shows on West German television, especially on the ZDF program Lustige Musikanten.

Lang has sold more than 10 million recordings; he has earned 20 gold records and one platinum record within the German recording industry. He was known as one of the most famous yodelers to have ever lived.

Personal life and death

He was married to his wife Johanna since 1954; he had one son (Franz Herbert Lang) and one daughter (Christl). He died at a Munich nursing home on the 6th of December 2015 from Multiple organ dysfunction syndrome.