I can’t get Glass Of Champagne out of my head. Walking Lucy the other night I was singing snippets. Out loud. The people of our town who were out and about at that time can thank Ernie Goggins for that. And I thought that maybe my good friend here, Mr CC, would want a short piece that featured other great pop songs from the Netherlands. So, first, and also from the 1970s, there’s this slightly cheesy but nonetheless memorable pop tune by all-female band Pussycat:
(there’s a couple of completely over the top Portuguese commenters below that video, talking about the perfection, how great the vocal is, that someone’s granny loved the song but is now sadly dead….)
Enough pop, time for some serious Dutch rock. I am the proud owner of not one but TWO albums by Focus, purchased on ebay when you could get an album for a pound or two. This is track 5 side 1, and listen out for some tremendous, but all too brief, freak-out flautistry at about 1 min 20 seconds:
What is it with Dutch bands and fluting? Here’s Golden Earring (No, not the song you are thinking of):
And thanks to a well-known film I discovered that this lot were from the Netherlands:
Finally, this very well known song. Alas no fluting or whistling
There are other bands, well one, that I could think of, that could have been included ( Clan of Xymox ) but I don’t have anything by them on my Peel tapes so I probably don’t like their music. But I will shoehorn in this fine devotional Dutch song:
After doing my little compilation, I was reading the comments at 27Leggies, one of which mentioned that the main man from Sailor was Norwegian!!!! And here’s me, firm in the belief that Sailor were from The Netherlands. And it’s too late, I’d penned this article in my head, as it were, I’m not changing it now. And apart from A-ha and a quarter of Abba I know of no artistes from Norway.
CC writes
George also wrote that I have included a couple of videos without mp3 file, deliberately (because I liked the videos) .Each to their own.
Anyone with a knowledge of Norwegian music. You know what to do!
Well this is what happens when you hand over your column to enthusiastic amateurs isn't it? Very entertaining in its way but its falls far short of the high editorial values normally associated with this blog.
ReplyDeleteGeorge may also be interested to know than before Sailor the Norwegian in question had been the co-founder of Eclection whose other members went on to join the likes of Family, Fairport Convention and Jethro Tull. Plenty of fluting there.
He's also guesting at My Top Ten
ReplyDeleteThere is no escape!
There are worse things to have stuck in your head. For the last week or so I have had the Not The Nine O'Clock News Abba parody Super Duper stuck in mine, and have been singing it aloud too. You should feel sorry for my family really...
ReplyDeleteI do!
DeleteTwo-timed, eh, CC? I feel so cheap.
ReplyDeleteIt's worth pointing out that Edward Lodewijk Van Halen was born in Amsterdam. I sure George meant to mention him.
I feel like I’m the slacker here by not asking George to guest post on my blog today!!
ReplyDeleteYou usually don't have to ask him!
DeleteFor the longest time I honestly thought James Last was from Holland; to the point that when I was writing a blog about him the post was going to be titled ‘Dutch Master’. What a chump.
ReplyDeleteThanks to John Peel I came to know a smattering of Dutch bands and own a few of their albs amongst which were Seedling, Solex, Persil, Bettie Seveert and De Kift. The latter had the most amazing track Nauwe Mijter which any professed music lover must hear at least once before doing the proverbials and shuffling off this mortal coil
ReplyDelete