Later Bloomer

(Update: So sorry to report that Inge passed away on July 20, 2021.)

You’d never guess that 99-year-old Inge Ginsberg once wrote lyrics for the King of Cool himself, Dean Martin.

In her most recent incarnation, she fronts, in pearls and sequin gowns, a heavy metal band, “Inge & the TritoneKings.” But even that’s just one astonishing interlude in a life filled with them.

Born in 1922, Inge describes herself as a “Jewish princess in Vienna. Whoever could play the piano was the center of attention.” Ten years of piano lessons made her social royalty. Nothing prepared her family for Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria.

In 1942, Inge’s mother sold all her jewels to smuggle the family out of Austria. Like the famous scene in The Sound of Music, they escaped over the Alps, almost freezing to death.

Inge ended up in a Swiss refugee camp. There, the American secret service recruited her to manage a spy villa in Lugano. It’s where she met her first husband, Otto Kollman.

After World War II ended, Inge and Otto landed in Los Angeles and broke into the music industry. They composed songs for Doris Day, Nat King Cole, and Dean Martin (including Martin’s “Try Again”).

By the 1950s, Inge Ginsberg left the Hollywood scene (“It is all fake”) and her marriage. She moved to Israel for a decade and still spends part of the year in Tel Aviv. Two more husbands came and went, but Inge never stopped writing. She has created hundreds of poems in English and German.

“You have to do something which makes you happy. Some people drink, some people ‘frisk,’ and I write poetry,” Inge laughs.

When a musician friend, Pedro Da Silva, read her poems, they reminded him of death metal lyrics. He told her that she could shout them instead of singing them. The idea delighted Inge. “I can’t sing. I can’t carry a tune. So heavy metal works because I just have to say the words.” They went on to form the TritoneKings.

Purists point out that Inge Ginsberg’s style isn’t traditional metal, but most give her a pass for awesomeness. Her lyrics, however, can be heavy. They deal with the hardships she has endured and witnessed over the decades.

Her main topics include love, death, humanity, environmentalism, and not caring what other people think. “Heavy metal is not really poems, it’s messages,” Inge points out.

(Interesting side note on Inge’s non-traditional metal band: Her other collaborator is Lucia Caruso, an Argentine composer and pianist. Lucia and Pedro da Silva founded the innovative chamber music group, Manhattan Camerata. So two eclectic classical musicians make up Inge’s backing band. Here’s their intriguing other incarnation.)

On Switzerland’s Got Talent, Inge proclaims, “My greatest talent isn’t singing, it’s surviving.” The audience goes wild for her. But she bombs her America’s Got Talent audition, completely forgetting her lyrics.

She’s philosophical,

I am alive. I don’t have to do special things to prove that I am alive…Old age is a beautiful land. There is total freedom.

Heavy Metal Grandma: The Inge Ginsberg Documentary

Last year, filmmaker Leah Galant made a short documentary about Inge (included at the end) that debuted at the SXSW Film Festival.

“What am I doing today?” Inge asks Pedro da Silva during a recording session.

“Shouting!” he replies with a huge grin.

Leah Galant puts it more journalistically:

…beyond the spectacle of her unlikely performances, Ms. Ginsberg’s story is really that of a woman who is finding new ways to be heard.

Below is Leah’s documentary on Inge Ginsberg in its entirety. And if you enjoyed Inge’s story, you’ll love DJ Mamy Rock, the 69-year-old international nightclub sensation.