Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 5561. Photo: Hafbo Film. Billy Mo in Schlagerparade 1960 (Franz Marischka, 1960).
West German postcard by Franz Josef Rüdel, Filmpostkartenverlag, Hamburg, for Decca, no. 4746. Photo: Teldec / Unfried
The youngest police officer in Trinidad
Billy Mo was born as Peter Mico Joachim in Trinidad in 1923. His father was the result of an affair between an officer stationed in Cameroon, named Peter Joachim and a local woman of colour. His parents later moved to the Caribbean Islands. According to another story, his German grandfather married his African girlfriend and moved to Trinidad with his illegitimate wife after completing his military service.
Yet another story from 1967 tells of the death of Joachim's parents when he was five years old, after which he ended up in an orphanage with his two sisters. According to the subsequent story, his mother died in childbirth, and his father died three years later in a car accident. According to music journalist Jan Feddersen, both parents died in an accident a year after his birth. In the orphanage, Joachim received music lessons and learned to play the harmonica. According to other sources, he learned to play the trumpet and horn at the age of six.
According to a later publication, he joined an orchestra at the age of seven and became a member of the local police band at the age of 14, making him the youngest police officer in Trinidad. There are also several versions of when and how Peter Mico Joachim came to Great Britain. According to a 1967 magazine, he was hired by a British naval officer in 1945 for a jazz band. Another statement by Joachim was that he stayed in London from 1945 to 1956. Other accounts claim that he received a music scholarship for the Royal Academy of Music in 1943.
When searching for sources in England, also a wife appears: Eldica Joachim (1922–2000). According to her short biography, she left Trinidad in 1946 and moved to Great Britain with her husband, Peter Joachim. There she acted in films from 1951 onwards, such as Cry, The Beloved Country (Zoltan Korda, 1951) with Sidney Poitier and Green Pastures (George Schaefer, 1957).
Eldica Joachim had to stop her career as an actress because of polio, but she continued as a costume designer for several national and international film studios. She had three children: Greta, Ruby and Sheila. Her granddaughters, Jayne James and Sandra Reed, are singers, and her grandson, Martin James, is a drummer.
West German autograph card by Decca Schallplatten. Photo: Teldec / Constantin-Film.
Struggling to make ends meet
It is evident that Peter Mico Joachim subsequently played in London with the Trinidad All Stars, led by Al Jennings, with whom he performed on BBC radio in November 1945. This band played for American and British soldiers and performed in nightclubs. The group disbanded during a tour of France due to declining public interest, leaving him unemployed and returning to England. In addition to his work as a musician and his part-time jobs in restaurants, he struggled to make ends meet. He also worked as a nurse in a Scottish psychiatric institution for three years.
From 1950 onwards, Joachim collaborated with the arranger Rupert Nurse from Trinidad, with whom he performed at the Prince of Wales Theatre in the show 'Pardon my French' (1953-1954), together with the Caribbean pianist Winifred Atwell. In the early 1950s, Joachim founded his own orchestra, performing at the River Club, the Stork Club and the Café de Paris, but without making a breakthrough as a musician.
According to music writer Friedel Keim, Joachim went to the Benson Institute of Music in the United States in 1949 and obtained a doctorate there. He also obtained a PhD at the age of 30 after completing a psychology degree in Edinburgh and was appointed professor of musicology at the University of Oxford, according to Keim. His gravestone bears the title Prof. Dr.
In April 1956, Peter Mico Joachim travelled penniless via Paris to Hamburg and was hired as a trumpet player by the house band at the St. Pauli pub Blauer Peter. He also played Dixieland and rock 'n' roll in other clubs and began singing.
In 1957, he was discovered by Viktor Reschke, the leader of the NDR television orchestra. Under the pseudonym Billy Mo, he released the swing numbers 'Buona Sera' and 'Oh Marie', both by Louis Prima. In the same year, he played a trumpet solo for Bert Kaempfert's orchestra in Franz Grothe's 'Mitternachtblues'. With the songs 'Darling, du weißt ja', 'Oh Jennilie' and 'Swing Methusalem', he established his name in the German music world as Billy Mo.
West German postcard by Filmbilder-Vertrieb Ernst Freihoff, Essen, no. 826. Photo: Teldec / Schade.
A Tyrolean as his trademark
With the song 'Das Fräulein Gerda' from 1938, Billy Mo made his transition to Schlager and folk music in 1960. With the hits 'Wenn die Elisabeth nicht so schöne Beine hätt' (1961, 17th place), 'Am Sonntag will der Billy mit mir segeln geh'n' (1961) and 'Was kann der Sigismund dafür' (1961), he brought back old songs from the 1920s and 1930s. His big commercial breakthrough came in 1962 with the song 'Ich kauf mir lieber einen Tirolerhut', which spent 17 weeks in the German charts at number 3, with sales of four million DM.
The Tyrolean hat then became Billy Mo's trademark. His later singles were unable to match this success, despite the songs 'Bierdeckel-Polka' (1963, 21st place), 'Humba Täterä' (1964, 15th place) and 'Der Salon-Tiroler' (1964, 15th place). In 1970, Mo's last single was released. His musical style could no longer keep up with the musical developments of recent years, which affected his record sales.
Nevertheless, he sang his songs in entertainment programmes and in live shows on the road. His musical ability was highly regarded by critics. In 1959, Billy Mo appeared in a German feature film for the first time. Together with Paul Dahlke, Günter Pfitzmann and Ingrid van Bergen, he played a gangster quartet disguised as ship's musicians in Heinz Erhardt's comedy Drillinge an Bord / Triplets on Board (Hans Müller, 1958).
His contribution to German Schlager films and TV shows was limited to playing small roles, such as in the television series Frei nach Mark Twain (Franz Marischka, 1971) as a footman and in the children's film Kleiner Mann, was tun? (Uschi Madeisky, Klaus Werner, 1981) as a civil servant. Between 1963 and 1965, he had his own ARD entertainment show, Cafe Mo, at Hagenbeck Zoo, which required spontaneity and improvisational skills.
In 1956, he met his first German wife, Margot Miranda, in Hamburg. They had two children, Susanna (1960) and Jeffrey-Gordon. In 1966, Mo obtained German nationality after a lengthy application process. Billy was an incorrigible womaniser. During his marriage, he met his future manager and, from 1990, his wife Sylvia Hartjenstein, the bass player of the group Silverstars, in 1967. Their daughter Micole was born from this marriage. From 1970, Mo lived in Wunstorf, Lower Saxony, where he became involved in the local music scene. Until the age of 79, he performed in jazz clubs, especially at the Jazz Club Hannover. After a performance in December 2001, he suffered a heart attack and was kept in an induced coma. In 2002, he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon by Lower Saxony's Minister-President Sigmar Gabriel for his commitment to musical youth work. Mo died of heart failure in 2004 at the age of 81. As a member of the Zum Schwarzen Bär Masonic Lodge in Hanover, he was given a ritual funeral. The Big Band Die Auetaler, which he co-founded, played at his grave, and Deborah Sasson sang the song 'Ave Maria'. His gravestone in Wunstorf-Luthe features a trumpet and a Tyrolean hat.
West German autograph card by Decca.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and German) and IMDb.
