Born Georg Deuter in 1945 in post war Germany in the town of Falkenhagen, he taught himself the guitar, the flute, harmonica and "just about every instrument I could get my hands on," though it wasn’t until after a near-fatal car crash in his early twenties that he decided to pursue a career in music. His first release in 1970, entitled “D,” is widely acknowledged as a Krautrock classic. “D” marked the beginning of Deuter’s spiritual and musical journey, ostensibly paving the way for a new genre of music known as “New Age,” which combined acoustic and electronic elements with ethnic instrumentation and nature sounds, such as whale and bird song, the open sea, wind in the trees, et cetera.
During the Seventies and Eighties, Deuter traveled extensively in Asia in search of spiritual and creative inspiration, settling for long periods of time in Pune, India, where he took on the spiritual name Chaitanya Hari and became a sannyasin or student of the controversial spiritual teacher Bhagwan, who later changed his name into Osho.
In the early nineties, Deuter ended his long standing relationship with Kuckuck, the small record label that had released nearly 20 original Deuter albums in as many years, and relocated to Santa Fe, New Mexico where he signed a deal with New Earth Records, an independent label founded by fellow sannyasin Bhikkhu Schober and Waduda Paradiso. This proved to be a lucrative move for all involved, as Deuter's New Earth Records releases, the majority of them intended to accompany various healing and spiritual practices such as Reiki, massage and meditation or, in the case of Earth Blue (2003), a collaboration with the Autostadt Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg, Germany, have sold well over half a million copies.
Deuter continues to learn and master an ever-expanding array of instruments, including the drums, the shakuhachi flute, the koto, sitar, Tibetan singing bowls, santoor, bouzouki, piano and keyboard. He’s recorded and released over 60 albums and claims to have sold more than he can count during the course of his career.