Broddie's Gazette No. 14

July 2011

The Dutchman learnt the Blues from American Armed Forces radio networks in Holland. He'd listen to them on a crystal set pretty much as the same as my friend Rick Milne would do in Hamilton and I think around the same time. But Rick would have to wait hours in the mid fifties to hear Little Walter's "Juke" (which was apparently released here, probably on Leedon records I guess). Dutch could get to hear that stuff a lot easier over in Holland.

First time that I met the Dutchman I was about 18. I'd joined the Adderley Smith Blues band and was working gigs in and around Melbourne. This puts it at around 66-67.

A lot of gigs that we'd do would be with pop acts in halls and alcohol free clubs and we also did the odd late night night blues shows and sometimes folk clubs.

Those days we could do those pop shows as the scene was rapidly changing and the media folk were losing control on what the young should be listening to. Because of the Rolling Stones for example, we were occasionally lumped in with top 40 acts of the time, although the only white act (sort of) we really loved was The Paul Butterfield Blues Band who were more like gangsters than pop stars.

That's when we met the Dutchman. I think he was a plumber then or some such trade and lived with his partner Loma I believe, in a house down Frankston way. I went there once to a party with the Adderley Smith Blues Band and it was somewhat more devious than we young guys were used to. Only speaking for myself there. The Dutchman was about our height and a bit more worldly wise maybe. (We were from the north and the west of Melbourne so we weren't wet behind the ears).

In a way he didn't look much different than he did late in life. He smoked Camels and drank whatever and played the Blues, coming from a Bill Broonzy, Brownie McGee way of doing things. He was loud, opinionated and bossy, and we listened because he seemed to know what he was talking about.

He mentored us and introduced us to like minded people on the Folk scene such as Margaret Roadknight, Kenny White, Graham Squance, and so forth. There's some photos around somewhere of Dutch playing with the Adderleys at the Thumping Tum, a place to be in the mid sixties.

40 years later he was still doing the same thing, helping young blues acts and telling you to "Keep the Faith".
He'd been courted by the pop/rock scene earlier in his life and never really wanted to be part of it and stuck to his guns. He was the real Blues deal.

The Dutchman was still getting up at a reasonable time for a musician and having his cigarettes and doing the rounds of the bars he liked. I don't know how many wives or girlfriends he had but maybe he figured that was part of the Blues thing. I don't know how many guitars he had but I always had the feeling that he wasn't the collector type and just had enough for the job.

I have this romantic notion of Dutch that if there were still slow freight trains and easy to get in boxcars that's the way he would prefer to travel.

He had that way of making you think, "Well he seems to like what I do, so I guess I must be okay".
And that's all we needed.

A lot of people will miss the Dutchman and I'm one of them.

Til next time.

Brod

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