King Size Dick

Biography

King Size Dick, a truck driver by profession, began his musical career in the 1960s in his home town of Cologne in several smaller musical bands. The first band he was a member of was called “Dick & The Shade”. Whilst serving in the armed forces in Wales, he was a guest singer in a band called Brian Poole & The Tremeloes.

In the 1970s, he performed together with the Bläck Fööss, whilst also working for them as their truck driver. He usually took on the role of singing the band’s successful song “Linda Lou”, which has since been inextricably associated with the name King Size Dick.

At the end of the 1970s, he joined the “Formation Dick & Alex“, together with guitarist and songwriter Alex Parche. They played German rock music songs such as Schweine in weißen Westen (which translates to “pigs in white vests”).

Awards

King Size Dick is the bearer of the 2002 Willi Ostermann medal; which is the highest official award of the Cologne Carnival.

Origin of the stage name

According to an interview with citynews-koeln.de, while Mr. Ganss was stationed in Wales with the German armed forces (Bundeswehr), he was asked to perform locally at social events, such as birthdays, which were potluck. At the end of the event, performers could take some of the food leftovers. Prior to this and currently, overweight people in Cologne are at times called the German adjective "dick", which means "fat". Another example of the use of the German adjective as a nickname is for the comedy duo of Laurel and Hardy, which Germans often refer to a "Dick und Doof", meaning fat and stupid, as per the German Wikipedia page on this topic. So this adjective ("dick") had become a nickname at home. During one of the social gatherings in Wales, someone asked Heinz Ganss his name. He replied "Dick", referring to the German adjective for "fat", or "large", or "bigger". The person who asked him presumed that this was a German word, as opposed to the English colloquial term for penis, and asked what the German word "dick" meant in English. Heinz Ganss replied: "Large". "Oh", replied the Welshman and paraphrased: "King size". Mr. Ganss stuck to that and thus his stage name remained "King Size Dick" (big and fat), with no intended phallic reference; which does not exist in German or Colognian anyways. In the Colognian dialect, the German adjective "dick" ([dɪk]) translates to "deck" ([deˑk]) as opposed to "Dick" which in Colognian, like in English, is also regarded a variation of the Christian name "Richard". Back home, his nick and stage names remained "Dick", even in the Colognian language.

Albums

Singles