The guitarist Bernd Witthüser (1944-2017) and the multi-instrumentalist Walter Westrupp (* 1946) had their roots in the folk and protest song movement, and their joint titles initially had macabre, later predominantly psychedelic elements.
[2] In 1968 Witthüser was involved as managing director of the Internationale Essener Songtage initiated by Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser, Tom Schroeder, Hendrik M. Broder, Reinhard Hippen and others, where he also performed himself.
In Berlin they performed with Insterburg & Co, Reinhard Mey, Ulrich Roski, Schobert & Black and Hannes Wader.
Bernd Witthüser traveled to India, then went to Berlin and later to Italy, where he lived for a long time as a street singer.
It included music from all four W&W programs as well as songs that had not been released on any of the previous LPs: a cross-section of the two musicians' entire creative period together.
A DVD, reworked by Walter Westrupp in 2005 and released under the title Als wäre es gestern erst gewesen, shows the career of the two musicians based on old TV recordings, documentaries and pictures from 1968 to 2003 (including Otto & Bernelli and Walter h.c. Meier Pumpe) and the story of their invention (the tea bag lifting machine - TEHOMA).
[4] The first LP Lieder von Vampiren, Nonnen und Toten (Songs of vampires, nuns and the dead)[5] was recorded in Hamburg in March 1970 and dealt thematically with life, death and dying.
In addition to his own texts, poems by Heinrich Heine, Novalis, Thomas Rother and Baltus Brösel were set to music.
Their stage show at that time consisted of only one red and one green light - alternating for love and coffin songs.
The title was program: the album contains travelogues (among others Laßt uns auf die Reise gehen, a text by Thomas Rother) as well as Nimm einen Joint, mein Freund, which is one of the band's best-known songs.
The instruments grew: Witthüser played electric guitar and mandolin, Westrupp added psalteries, bongos and f-flutes.
Their live program of the same name was peppered with nonsense lyrics, Indian fairy tales, and stories of trips and hikes together through strange wondrous landscapes, and - just like the LP - was aimed at the "positively" freaked out.
The lyrics were based on German and Indian fairy tales and the books of J. R. R. Tolkien and Carlos Castaneda, the music came exclusively from Witthüser & Westrupp.
Guest musicians were Jürgen Dollase, Jerry Berkers, Harald Grosskopf, Bill Baron (all from the rock group Wallenstein), Tommy Engel (bläck fööss), Gille Lettmann, Antje Dahlhaus (both singing) and Dieter Dierks.