As a child of a pioneer of the Boogie-Woogie & Blues played in Europe, one would quickly think that this style of music was instilled at an early age. Of course in our house in Krommenie there was ‘sometimes’ music when my father was playing, but there was hardly ever music played. Logical really, because someone who performs 3, 4 or sometimes 5 times a week has heard enough music by then. As far as that goes, history repeats itself when I look at how much my children have learned and experienced from ‘music at home’. Anyway, DNA does not deny itself and so I have been walking the same path as my father for 31 years now.
However, the first time I consciously ‘experienced’ a record myself was through my neighbor’s boy who in 1987 showed me the newly released U2 album ‘The Joshua Tree’. What a sound … And that guitar … Whole landscapes passed before my eyes. Later, when I got a record player I dove right into my mother and father’s very modest “collection. Little Richard, The Rolling Stones, Erroll Garner, Ten Years After, Elvis, Randy Newman etc. I loved it. So did “A Hard Road” by John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers. That became one of my favorites when I later started playing guitar. I once had that LP signed by John Mayall. But yes… Kees Dusink has already….hmmmmm.Then I now choose the double LP ‘John Lee Hooker & Canned Heat’ with the highlight being the 12-minute version of ‘Boogie Chillun’ with an absolute peerless starring role for Alan Wilson in it, who blows a piece of harmonica on it that to this day gives me goosebumps. My father could also enjoy that enormously. That power, that purity! An underrated child as far as I’m concerned, both this rendition and Alan Wilson himself. Enjoy!