In an article in a previous issue I focused on the reception of American country music in the Netherlands, more particularly on the reasons for its marginality in the Dutch music market as compared to most other forms of American popular music (van Elteren, "Country"). Here I will concentrate on the local versions of country music, and address the question to what extent Dutch acts have actively appropriated U.S. country music forms and been creative in developing their own indigenous variants. Because of its strong influence on the dominant perception of country music among the general audience in the Netherlands, I will also deal with the role of country and western dancing in the Dutch country scene.

An Uneasy Beginning

As I have indicated in my earlier article on country music in the Netherlands, this musical genre arrived late in this country. After its early beginnings in the 1930s, particularly "cowboy music" derivative of Hollywood cowboy films, Dutchified "hillbilly music" and Hawaiian music, it really set through only in the late 1950s. This delay was due to an unfavorable setting to popular music in general because of a restrictive culture climate and heavy resistance among the elites against "vulgar mass culture"--with U.S. popular culture as the most significant target--virtually no air play of country music on Dutch radio, and therefore a prevailing unfamiliarity with this music among the Dutch. This notwithstanding the fact that there are older musical traditions in the Netherlands such as old sailors' ballads, accordion music, street-band, carnival-like music, brass band music, waltz and polka dancing which have clear affinities with specific subgenres of country music, particularly Tex-Mex music. Especially in the southernmost province of Limburg, with its strong influence of southern German culture, this tendency has always been felt in the local fairs' music and brass band music, and at present in the musical style of southern Dutch bands such as Rowwen Heze (van Elteren, "Rocking").

One of the first Dutch country acts were the Chico's, led by Simon Sint who had performed with a dance orchestra at American army bases in Germany just after World War II. He first got to know country music there when he replaced a guitar player of a country group from Arizona, who had become ill. When he returned to Holland at the end of 1946 he met the Veldberg family who wanted to play country, from which the Chico's emerged. At the time their music was called "cowboy music." Their singing in parts was modeled on the singing style of The Sons of the Pioneers. Most of the repertoire consisted of covers of American songs with Dutch lyrics like "Koel Helder Water" [Cool Clear Water] and "Als het Kampvuur Brandt" [When the Campfire Burns]. These songs made `real' country music more accessible to the general Dutch audience who asked for understandable lyrics. The group was disbanded in 1960, and from 1962 till 1964 Simon Sint played in the social-democratic Vereniging van Arbeiders Radio Amateurs (VARA) radio program Western Time. As a result of a revival of old Chico's records in the late 1960s Simon Sint then formed a new group under the same name, together with steel guitarist Frans Doolaard and Conny Kamp. Every second week they gave performances in a TV program of the Christian broadcasting organization NCRV (Nederlandse Christelijke Radio Vereniging).

Another early Dutch country act was Toby Riks who started to play in a Hawaiian band in the 1930s already. In 1938 he, his bass guitarist, and female singer Mariek Janssen had formed a country trio, called the Young Rambling Cowboys. They played country music on the nondenominational Algemene Vereniging "Radio Omroep" (AVRO) radio, until the first eight months of the Second World War. In 1946/47 he and his wife joined the group the Sunset Rangers who performed in radio programs of the Catholic broadcasting organization, Katholieke Radio Omroep (KRO). They always sang in English. Toby Riks's artist name then was Jodeling Jimmy--after Jimmy Rodgers, of course. Their only rivals at that time were the Chico's and Bill Kilima and his Singing Cowboys. They did not play electric instruments and their major instruments were fiddle and banjo. Their repertoire was derived from American records by Jimmy Rodgers and Hank Williams, which were only sporadically available in Holland.(1)

Country singer Ben Steneker helped to popularize country music among a wider audience. He has sung many covers of cowboy and mainstream country songs since 1958--mostly in English but occasionally also in Dutch and even in German. He was very popular in the early sixties among a general audience who also tended to like Dutch tear-jerkers in the populist-popular genre. In the course of time he would become a real diehard in the Dutch country scene, where he still performs today.

Two colored minorities acted as significant intermediaries in the reception and broader dissemination of "white" American country music in the Netherlands: Eurasians and Amboinese from the former Dutch colonies of Indonesia. They had become acquainted with rock 'n' roll, country music, rhythm and blues, as well as some of the Tin Pan Alley music of the day, through the Australian radio broadcasters and the American stations at the Philippines. Between 1956 and 1965 young Eurasians and Amboinese put their stamp on Dutch popular music through a musical trend which would later be called "Indorock" in Holland. The major part of the repertoire of the Indorock bands, especially those who mainly played in the club circuit of Indonesian repatriates, was country and western music with style features of Hawaiian music, however. As a result of this specific introduction of rock 'n' roll in the Netherlands, the Dutch became better acquainted with the musical styles that were incorporated into rock 'n' roll (country music and rhythm and blues) in reverse order (Mutsaers, Rocking and "Indorock").

The Coming-of-Age of Dutch country

From the mid-sixties onwards, partly under the influence of country programs broadcast by the American Forces Network and the radio ship ("pirate sender") Veronica, something like a Dutch country scene evolved, with electric country acts like the Dyke Brothers and Early Bird. Then also a number of acoustic groups manifested themselves, as well as bands with interest in both folk and country, in which CCC, Inc.,(2) the Dutch hippie group par excellence, took the lead.

In the late 1960s the longing for community that became strongly manifest within the youth counter-culture expressed itself in a turn towards musical forms which still had their roots in real or supposedly living communities. As to country music, this implied a distanciation from the commercialized Nashville variant and a focus on the more "authentic" acoustic subgenres. As a result, from around 1970 an increasing number of Dutch old-time country and bluegrass groups came into being: the Kentucky Mountaineers, the Rusty String Pickers, the Country Ramblers, Smoketown Strut, the Dutch Bluegrass Boys, the Hobo String Band, and A. G. & Kate. Some of these groups would exist for only a relatively short period, but other ones would stay on the Dutch country scene till the 1980s or even today. Generally, bluegrass groups in the Netherlands reached a high quality level; some of these groups could, or can, compete with North American acts. An excellent example is the former Dutch bluegrass group Jerrycan whose album Stony Man Mountain (1983) was called a "highlight LP" in a review in the major international bluegrass magazine, the American Bluegrass Unlimited (Janssen 145).

There was also a brief period of interest in "down-to-earth" country music in the track of country-rock groups such as The Byrds, in the late 1960s. This was soon abandoned in the Dutch counter-culture however, in connection with the rise of anti-American sentiments directed against the conservative attitudes of the "silent majority" in the U.S. Then the search for a non-American "authenticity" in indigenous Western European ways became a main issue in the world of Dutch folk music and kindred forms of folk rock. Paradoxically, from the "true to convention" adage which then prevailed, the popularity of foreign folk music led to a (modest) cultivation of Flemish and Dutch folk music, and its various regional variants (van Elteren, "Sounds").