Made in Belgium: Wannes Van De Velde

When you think of folk music in Flanders, brought in the own local dialect, you can't ignore Wannes Van De Velde.  He seems, together with Roland, Willem Vermandere the founding father of poetic, folkloric chanson.

Wannes was a poet, sculpture, musician and singer from Antwerp. In the 60ies he started to write folksongs & protestsongs.  Not speaking any of the "official correct Dutch" he stuck to his local dialect from Antwerp which is so typical in his songs and a lot of songtexts also related to his home city.  He was surrounded with excellent musicians , creating a very unique own sound.  At the same time he was quite active in (puppet) theatre, writing movie music and also writing poetry.

In 2008 Wannes passed away after fighting leukemia for several years.  He has received several decorations & awards for his career and in Bornem there is a street named after him.



Ik wil deze nacht in de straten verdwalen

 Als ik zou sterven



Bitter zeemanslied
 


 Hier is em terug



 De flamingant ne me traĆ®tez
 


PS: this post was in fact a request from Sponzen Ridder .   Thanks for taking interest in my series!  Always fun to get some response :)

Comments

Alcyon said…
Next blogpost then: Walter De Buck... :-)
Brian Miller said…
haha...fun music...cant understand a word but i can feel the emotion in his voice....

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