Axel Zwingenberger
German musician
Axel Zwingenberger (German: [ˌaksl̩ ˈt͡svɪŋənˌbɛʁɡɐ] ; born 7 May 1955) is a German blues and boogie-woogie pianist and songwriter.
Biography
Zwingenberger was born in Hamburg, West Germany, and enjoyed 11 years of classical piano training. After listening to recordings by pianists Pete Johnson, Albert Ammons, Meade "Lux" Lewis, he became a boogie-woogie musician. In 1974 he performed with pianists Hans-Georg Moeller, Vince Weber and Martin Pyrker at the First International Blues and Boogie Woogie Festival in Cologne, West Germany. They also played at the Stars of Boogie Woogie and the Hans Maitner festival.
A year later he signed with a record label, which released his solo albums Boogie Woogie Breakdown, Power House Boogie, and Boogie Woogie Live. He has worked with Ray Bryant, Champion Jack Dupree, Lloyd Glenn, Lionel Hampton, Jay McShann, Cili Marsall, Joe Newman, Sammy Price, Big Joe Turner, Sippie Wallace, Charlie Watts, Vince Weber, Bill Wyman, and Mama Yancey. His publications include Boogie Woogie: Piano Solo, a book of twelve of his compositions transcribed.
A railfan since early childhood, he published photographs of steam locomotives in The Magic of Trains and established a non-profit group with the German Foundation for the Protection of Historical Monuments which works for the preservation of trains, such as the steam-powered DR 18 201.
In early 2009, with the English pianist Ben Waters, Zwingenberger renewed his relationship with Charlie Watts, the drummer of the Rolling Stones.
The public source identifies “Axel Zwingenberger” as german musician. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Axel, Zwingenberger and German.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q68842. VIAF identifies the subject as 71182986. The Library of Congress control number is no2007131171. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955, 1974 and 2009.
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This entry incorporates text from “Axel Zwingenberger” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.