Über Beth Wimmer - "Switzerlands Americana Songbird" - featuring Mike Bischof (CH)

Full Biography in English, below…

Geboren in New York und aufgewachsen im ländlichen Massachusetts, entdeckte Beth Wimmer schon früh ihre Liebe zu der Musik, die man heute gemeinhin als “Americana” bezeichnet. Mit 18 Jahren zog die junge Künstlerin in den pulsierenden musikalischen Schmelztiegel Südkalifornien, wo ihr Talent und ihre Ausstrahlung von angesehenen Musikern, die u.a. mit Jackson Browne, Lucinda Williams, Bonnie Raitt und Eric Burdon gespielt haben, entdeckt und gefördert wurden. 

Seit achtzehn Jahren lebt Beth Wimmer in der Schweiz, wohin sie ein einmonatiges Solo-Engagement in St. Moritz geführt hatte.

Beth Wimmers Texte erzählen aus dem reichen Fundus ihrer Geschichte. In ihrer unvergleichlich authentischen und feinfühligen Art gibt sie dem Publikum mit jedem Song Einblick in ihre Träume, Beobachtungen und Gefühle. Beth ist bereits auf einigen der renommiertesten Bühnen der Schweiz aufgetreten - Montreux Jazz Festival, Summerblues Basel, Bluesfestival Baden, Chapella Openair, Moods Zürich, Werkstatt Chur - und hat mit ihrer Bühnenpräsenz und ihren Songs sowohl das Publikum als auch die Musikwelt überzeugt. 

Mike Bischof ist seit Jahren als Bassist, Gitarrist und Produzent in der Schweizer Musikszene aktiv und gehört mittlerweile zu den gefragtesten “Sidemen” des Landes. Die Liste der Künstler, die er mit Bass, Gitarre, seinem soliden Backgroundgesang und vor allem mit einem selbst entwickelten Instrument (der “Bass’tarre”, mit der er gleichzeitig Bass und Gitarre spielen kann) begleitet hat, ist lang:  Gustav, Marvin, Nina Dimitri, Bettina Schelker, Pink Pedrazzi und viele mehr...  

Nun haben auch Beth Wimmer und Mike Bischof seit einiger Zeit zueinander gefunden, und diese Zusammenarbeit hat es in sich: Beth Wimmers dynamische Songs und ihre warme Ausnahmestimme erhalten durch die Chemie und das Zusammenspiel der beiden noch einen einzigartigen Schub an Tiefe, Ausdruck und Atmosphäre. 

Das harmonische Duo veröffentlichte 2023 seine ersten gemeinsam produzierten Aufnahmen (Wimmers sechstes Album) : eine EP mit dem Titel „Nature“ – mit sechs eigenkomponierten Songs voller „Truth and Tragedy“, aus Wimmers Feder und von den beiden gemeinsam arrangiert wurden.

Im Frühjahr 2026 wurde die neue Single „Midnight Honey“ veröffentlicht und fand ihren Weg ins Schweizer, europäische und amerikanische Radio. Noch in diesem Jahr erscheint Wimmers neuer, eigens komponierter Weihnachtssong „First Christmas Without You“. Die Planungen für die Veröffentlichung einer neuen EP im Jahr 2027 sind bereits in vollem Gange.

Ob als intimes Duo oder mit ihrer dynamischen Band – mit den Zürcher Grössen Jost Müller am Schlagzeug und Rodrigo Aravena am Bass – sind Beth Wimmers Konzerte kraftvoll und erbaulich. 

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ENGLISH - ABOUT BETH WIMMER :

"An honest voice, full of heart and soul and incredible songs." - Swa, Rootsville, Belgium 

"Beautifully crafted songs with themes that touch the hearts of us all." -Billy Watts (Eric Burdon, Mojo Monkeys)

Born in New York and raised in rural Massachusetts, Beth Wimmer discovered her love for Americana music at a young age. With dogs, cats, rabbits, ducks and a babbling brook in the Wimmers’ lush yard, Beth’s mother, older brother and sisters filled their old farmhouse with sounds of The Who, Jethro Tull, Crosby Stills & Nash, David Bowie, Neil Young, Janis Joplin, The Roches and Cat Stevens. “As a teenager, it was Bruce Springsteen, U2, The Pretenders and Led Zeppelin who sang me through high school,” says Wimmer. 

Her folk-singing grandfather was her hero, and her poet/artist mother, Maureen, gave Beth creative inspiration. At 18 years old, after having sung in some local bands, and winning the annual Croston Poetry-Reading Contest in Haverhill, Massachusetts, Beth left east coast USA for Southern California, where her father lived. There she studied songwriting and practiced performing, while continuing her education in photography.

In Los Angeles, Beth took some freshly-written songs and recorded two studio albums with her new friend, producer/drummer David Raven (Shelby Lynne, Nancy Sinatra). “Live Within Live Without”, Wimmer’s debut album, was released in 2003, followed by an EP in 2005 which packed the rocking single, “Self Righteous Son of a Bitch”. In 2008 came Beth’s next album, “Miracle Girl”, again recorded with Raven as co-producer in his Honky Abbey Studio, and with Raven's bandmates, Mojo Monkeys, branding her songs with a close-knit, soulful pulse, featuring the expressive and stand-out electric guitar work of Billy Watts (Eric Burdon, Bonnie Raitt). The title track, “Miracle Girl”, is still in current rotation on swiss radio.

During her L.A. music days, Beth’s song “Self Righteous Son of a Bitch” finished a semi-finalist in the Dallas Songwriters Association Songwriting Contest, and as a finalist in the UNISONG International Songwriting Contest. Wimmer’s 2006 song “Weather” was a finalist in the We Are Listening Lyric Writer Awards.

In 2008, a month-long, solo gig in St. Moritz, Switzerland led Beth to a radical life-change: moving from Santa Monica, California—50 meters above sea level—to 1,870 meters high, in the mountains of St. Moritz. Wimmer had found new love—which later led to marriage—and she found her place in the music scene in Switzerland and Europe.

2011 found Beth teaming up with Como Italy native, multi-instrumentalist Damiano Della Torre, for her third full-length album, “Ghosts & Men”, recorded in Della Torre’s Radiosky Studio, Como. Della Torre provided colorful texture to Wimmer’s new compositions of love, loss, and discovery with his spirited accordion-playing and fine piano skills. His experience performing with masters such as Tom Jones, Terence Trent D’Arby, and Sugar Blue informed his feel for Americana music, and Della Torre even played the swiss Handpan and undeniably greasy slide guitar on the tracks of “Ghosts & Men”. This album and “Miracle Girl”(2008) began garnering much attention from DJs and reviewers on the Euro-Americana scene.

"...if Chris Isaac and Annie Lennox moved down to the southern part of the states and had themselves a baby girl - that girl would sound like Beth." - Pär Winberg, Melodic.net, Sweden.

All along, Wimmer was touring, mainly solo, in Switzerland, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands, and the UK. Trips to visit family in the USA meant a few select gigs there as well. From 2013 to present, Beth Wimmer can also be seen performing with country-singer/songwriter from Liechtenstein, Suzie Candell. The two Americana songstresses had found each other while living in the mountainous east, the St. Galler Rheintal, of Switzerland. Wimmer and Candell perform often and record together—in duo, in Candell's band, and in their newly-founded ‘Four Trick Pony’, an acoustic-quartet which features songs penned from both women, accented with classic Americana covers. 

With persistence and “music-biz” sensibility, Wimmer landed gigs in noted venues such as Montreux Jazz Festival, Summerblues Basel, Blues Festival Baden, and the Paléo Festival Clubhouse. Her deepened songwriting skills and performance experience, along with chatting in “California-Deutsch” at her live shows, helped her win over audiences and promoters. And new songs kept coming. 

The ten-song CD, “Bookmark”, was released in 2017. Wimmer’s first new album since “Ghosts & Men” in 2011, “Bookmark” presented nine of her own compositions and an anthemic cover of David Bowie's “Starman”. The album, musically more mature and tightly recorded, again with David Raven and Mojo Monkeys providing the grooves, was filled with themes of personal goals, birds, and dreams of love. “Bookmark”, recorded at Little Big Beat Studios in Liechtenstein, reached Number 18 in the Euro Americana Charts and was warmly received by radio and press, with the singles "Pretty Good" and "Louisiana" still donning airplay in Europe.

It was while touring her “Bookmark” release, when Wimmer landed a high-profile slot in the legendary Montreux Jazz Festival, with her full band on Americana Night in July 2018. A solo appearance in the prestigious Summerblues Basel followed the next summer.

In 2019, Beth returned to Little Big Beat Studios to record her fifth album, “Chemical Reaction”, with the added energy of personal challenges, including health, and separation then divorce from her husband. Released in 2020, but with a stunted promotion-run due to the Pandemic, Beth said of “Chemical Reaction”, “This is an emotional collection of songs for me, about deep and physical connections, chemistry, everlasting interpersonal relationships, the inhumanity of society... and the question of what will happen to me after i die.”

Billy Watts, guitarist from Mojo Monkeys, co-produced Wimmer’s “Chemical Reaction”, and this time with a Grammy-nomination for his blues guitar-work in his pocket. Watts led the studio band, again with David Raven on drums, through a variety of grooves and styles on the album, all still thread together with Americana roots. Watts says, of Chemical Reaction, “Beth has once again written wonderful songs, with themes that touch the hearts of us all.”

The album’s second track, “Better Than You Think”, landed in Glasgow’s Radio Six International’s Top Twenty Songs of 2020.

In summer of 2020, Beth Wimmer began performing in duo with Switzerland’s Mike Bischof, who'd been active on the swiss music scene for years as a bassist, guitarist and producer, and is one of the most sought-after sidemen in the country. The list of swiss artists Bischof has accompanied with bass, guitar, his solid background vocals and especially with a self-developed instrument, the “Bass'tarre”, with which he can play bass and guitar at the same time, is long: Bettina Schelker, Pink Pedrazzi, Gustav, Marvin, Nina Dimitri and more.

Beth Wimmer and Mike Bischof found harmony, personally and musically, and the collaboration created something special: Beth Wimmer’s dynamic songs and her warm, exceptional voice gained a unique boost of depth and expression, thanks to the chemistry and interplay between the two.

In 2023, the duo released their first jointly produced record (Wimmer’s sixth album): an EP entitled “Nature”—featuring six original songs full of “Truth and Tragedy,” penned by Wimmer and arranged by the two of them together.

In 2026, newly released singles (“Midnight Honey”) are being played on Swiss, European, and American radio stations. Later this year, Wimmer’s new Christmas song, “First Christmas Without You”, will be released. Plans for the release of a new EP in 2027 are in full swing.

And Beth Wimmer & Mike Bischof’s tour schedule is often packed: whether as an intimate duo or with dynamic band—featuring Zürich greats Jost Müller on drums and Rodrigo Aravena on bass—Beth Wimmer’s concerts are powerful and uplifting. 

Beth Wimmer’s songs have been chosen for onboard entertainment on Swiss and Lufthansa airplanes, have been placed in films, and are aired on dozens of radio stations in Europe, the UK, and the United States. Dubbed ‘Switzerland’s Americana Songbird’, Beth Wimmer runs her own record label, Bookmark Music, from her countryside home, along with partner Mike Bischof, in northwest Switzerland, with two cats (and a dog) in the yard. 

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