Chris Strachwitz Parents: Meet his Mother and Father

Chris Strachwitz was a record label executive and record producer from Germany.

He was the son of Friederike Frances Adelheid von Bredow and Alexander Maria Hubertus Hyacinthus Graf.

His family were aristocratic landowners. In 1945, under the terms of the Potsdam Agreement, he and his family were among the millions of German-speaking people forcibly relocated to the west of the Oder-Neisse line, which became Germany’s eastern border.

Chris Strachwitz’s family temporarily relocated to Braunschweig, in the British zone of Allied-occupied Germany, where he first heard swing music broadcast on Armed Forces Radio.

The family immigrated to the United States in 1947, first settling in Reno, Nevada, and then in Santa Barbara, California.

Chris Strachwitz was the founder and president of Arhoolie Records, which he founded in 1960.

Arhoolie Records grew into one of the leading label’s recording and releasing blues, Cajun, notes, and other forms of roots music from the United States and around the world.

Chris Strachwitz was awarded the Grammy Trustees Award in February 2016 at the 2016 Grammys in recognition of his contributions in areas of recording other than performance.

Chris Strachwitz passed away on Friday, May 5 2023, from complications with congestive heart failure at an assisted living facility in Marin County, according to the Arhoolie Foundation. He was 91.