Not only was Bert Kaempfert one of the most successful conductors, arrangers, and recording artists in the field of orchestral pop, he was also a major producer who played a key (if indirect) role in the roots of the British beat boom of the early '60s, which evolved into the British Invasion of America in 1964.

Berthold Kaempfert was born in Barmbek, a working-class section of Hamburg, Germany, in 1923.