‘Like father like son’ is more common than the exception in folk music. Folk It! programme maker Marius Roeting covers from Thursday 20th July in three consecutive episodes high quality inter family folk music.
Until roughly a half century ago it was public property: written on gables “Van Westen and son ”, “ Koolwijk Brothers” or “Family Zuilen”. Companies in which the son took over the running from his father or brothers who worked in the same business, sisters who worked together or the mother who played an important role in the company. In short, the family company. Thanks to among other things better educational chances, increased mobility, a changing labour market etc has the necessity, but also the reduction in chances to take over family businesses slowly disappeared.
But what about professional musicians? in pop music we all know examples: Joe Stummer, Sting’s son. Or Jacob Dylan as successor to father Bob, Julian as successor to John Lennon. Or even two sons (Adam en Oliver) who take over from dad (Rick Wakeman) in consecutively the Strawbs en the supergroup Yes? And who remembers Paul McCartney’s singing brother (Michael McGear)? Or Tim and Jeff Buckley, of whom the latter not only followed in his father’s musical footsteps, but also tragically died early? Sometimes it’s less obvious (father Ravi Shankar and daughter Nora Jones). In Holland we know the twins Gerard and Chris Koerts from Earth & Fire. Or also brothers Jan and Henk Versteegen from the Shoes. And what about family de Groot with Boudewijn, Jim and Marcel…
What about the genre Folk It! covers? We had an interesting idea to do a minispecial about “familyfolk”. We were overcome by the amount… and we haven’t finished looking.
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This three parter begins on Thursday 20th July 2017 at 22:00 . Click here for programme information about part 1.