Tony Holiday
Tony Holiday (born Rolf Peter Knigge; 24 February 1951 – 14 February 1990) was a German pop and schlager singer and songwriter.
Tony Holiday
- Name
- Tony Holiday
- Birth Name
- Rolf Peter Knigge
- Born
- 24 February 1951
- Birthplace
- Hamburg, West Germany
- Died
- 14 February 1990
- Place of death
- Lausanne, Switzerland
- Occupation
- Singer-songwriter
- Nationality
- Germany
- Languages
- German
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Tony Holiday. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q71908
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
The documentary record
Statements marked “Documentary record” are set in the article beside the passage they confirm. Each is read from the authority records of the institutions named here; select “Prove” to see the record it was read from, where in that record, and when.
Institutions cited
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
Not stated by the sources cited: nationality
Complete reading chain (JSON)In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Tony Holiday • Birth Name — Rolf Peter Knigge • Born — 24 February 1951 • Birthplace — Hamburg, West Germany • Died — 14 February 1990 • Place of death — Lausanne, Switzerland • Genre — Pop, schlager • Occupation — Singer-songwriter
Documentary record
Tony Holiday appears in the authority records of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek as a Schlager singer, musician and “Texter” (1951 – 1990). Tony Holiday was born in 1951 and died in 1990.
Career
Career
Knigge was born in Hamburg. He began his career initially as a textile businessman and fashion designer. In 1974, he received a record contract with Hans Bertram, who rechristened him "Tony Holiday". His first two singles met with little success. Holiday's breakthrough came in 1977 with the German recording of Italian singer Raffaella Carrà's 1976 single "A far l'amore comincia tu", retitled "Tanze Samba mit Mir" ("Dance the Samba With Me"). The song quickly became a hit in both Germany and Austria, peaking at No. 4 on the German music charts and reaching the Top 20 on the Austrian music charts. In 1979, he participated with the title "Zuviel Tequila, zuviel schöne Mädchen" ("Too Much Tequila, Too Many Beautiful Girls") in the German finals for the Eurovision Song Contest and the song finished in ninth place. Between 1975 and 1984, Holiday performed 11 times on the popular German music television program ZDF-Hitparade. In 1980, Holiday scored a second European hit with "Nie mehr allein sein" which reached the number 15 on the German music charts. The song was a reworking of "Sun of Jamaica" by the German band Goombay Dance Band. Holiday subsequently hosted several music programs on television and released several more singles throughout the 1980s.
Death and legacy
Holiday was gay, but did not publicly acknowledge his homosexuality. He died on Valentine's Day, 1990 of an AIDS-related illness in Lausanne, aged 38, just ten days shy of his 39th birthday. In 2000, Tony Holiday's single "Tanze Samba mit Mir" was prominently featured in the Teddy Award-winning François Ozon directed film Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes (Water Drops on Burning Rocks), an adaptation of the play Tropfen auf heiße Steine by German filmmaker and dramatist Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Discography
•;Albums *1977 Tanze Samba mit mir *1979 Rumba ok *1980 Nie mehr allein sein *2004 Tanze Samba mit mir (Posthumous collection) —;Singles *1974 "Gewonnen" (as Peter Knigge) *1975 "Du hast mich heut' noch nicht geküsst" *1976 "Monte Carlo" *1977 "Rosy, Rosy" *1977 "Tanze Samba mit mir" (German chart peak position: #4. Austrian chart peak position: #19) *1978 "Disco Lady" *1978 "Es lebe Copacabana" *1978 "Den Appetit kannst du dir holen...doch gegessen wird zu Haus" *1979 "Zuviel Tequila, zuviel schöne Mädchen" *1979 "Samba olè, Rumba O.K." *1980 "Nie mehr allein sein" (German chart peak position: #15) *1980 "Auf dem Weg zum großen Glück" *1980 "Disco Donna" *1981 "Rio (de Janeiro)" (German chart peak position: #62) *1981 "Requiem für Sally" *1982 "Darf ich der Erste sein (Una Notte Speciale)" *1983 "Die selben Sterne leuchten auch für Dich" *1983 "Das sagt sich so leicht" *1983 "Die Karawane von Marrakesch" *1984 "Urlaubsreif" *1985 "Liebe ist..." (duet with Siw Inger) *1986 "C'est la vie" (with Foreign Currency) *1987 "Ma Ma Chérie" *1988 "Ta Ta Tanzmusik"
Text attribution
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Tony Holiday (musician), revision 1371020169 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Universität Würzburg.
- 2.Austrian Charts
- 3.Eurovision Spain.com.
- 4.IMDB.com
- 5.Chart History
- 6.Huber, Herman J. "Leben, Laster, Leidenschaft: Weitere 60 schillernde Kultstars der Schwulen". Foerster, 1991
- 7.Engagement für karitative und AIDS-Projekte (German)
- 8.Kinoeye. Identity and love: The not-so discreet charm of François Ozon
- 9.45cat
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 19 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Music memorabilia
44,023 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Tony HendrikPerson
- Tony HicksPerson
- Tony HillerPerson
- Tony HofferPerson
- Tony HumphriesPerson
- Tony HymasPerson
- Tony IommiPerson
- Tony JacksonPerson
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Tony Holiday?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.