Rob de Nijs was a fixture in Dutch pop music: from profound songs to party number ‘Malle Babbe’

Singer Rob Nijs was sober in it: at one point it had to be about. The handsome teenage idol, the sultry troubadour, the polished in the leather stung rocking heartbreaker, the honest chansonnier, the singer who reinvested a lot of times and recording about seven hundred songs – he had it all not to be anymore. Better he stopped his voice well and he still liked it, the singer said in 2020 about his farewell album, in the middle of the coronation time at a long distance at his kitchen table in Bennekom.

From the podium and his fans, the popular singer of the Dutch quality song (‘rhythm of the rain’, ‘Banger Hart’, ‘Sunday’, ‘Day sister Ursula’, ‘put a candle for your window’) in 2022 farewell: in his wheelchair, Rob de Nijs suffered to Parkinson’s, on the podium of the Ziggo Dome. The melancholy visual ‘photo of the past’ (‘yes!’ – sounded in the room) was one of the highlights. And ‘Without you’, that evening a duet with Bløf singer Paskal Jakobsen, moved-including courteous kiss on the forehead. “It is a strange feeling that I last singing every song for the last time,” De Nijs told the room, his hands trembling at the microphone stand.

I am sober in it: at some point it must be about

In the loaded show, his voice should have gained in strength. With performances by many guest artists, the singer was always able to catch their breath, gradually his voice became fuller. A song Voorden – De Nijs could not do otherwise in sixty years of music. And now it is done, the brittle singer gestured, almost an apology.

‘Stupid short stage’

As moving as confronting it was how the at the age of 82 Deceased Dutch singer Rob de Nijs had let go of his ideals in recent years. As a performer, as a husband and as father of three sons – his youngest son is 12 years old. It was gradually getting up for him, Parkinson’s but also asthma is his freedom of movement. His health problems became known because he suddenly fell back from the stage in 2019 at a performance in Naaldwijk, a closing party of a cycling spectacle. Although it was also a “stupid short stage,” the singer said afterwards.

That his time ‘disappeared’, he sang in ‘Never Stil’, a song of his farewell album It’s nice (2020). In that album process he actually didn’t feel like it anymore, he told at the interview at home in Bennekom. When beautiful melancholy songs “blew in” through music colleagues such as Paskal Jakobsen, Danny Vera and Daniël Lohues, he started to think. A farewell album. A timed closure. De Nijs: “Then this is my double point. I am sober in it: at some point it must be about. ”

So he sang ‘what if it becomes later’ still in, an Americana song that described the ‘upcoming storm’. How it had started more, it suddenly started to blow. And later it turned out. On television (De Wereld Draait Door) he played in March 2020 ‘Not for the last time’, a moody song about the process of aging. He looked fragile.

To his surprise, it rained reactions – almost more warmth than he ever felt in his career. According to the singer, there had always been “something strange” around him. “You could never really like my music aloud, or something. I was always one more guilty pleasure. ” Not that he did anything else than what he always did. “But people suddenly saw it.”

Chameleon

Rob de Nijs, who was born in Amsterdam-Oost in 1942, went through life as a chameleon. As the first teenage idol in the band de Lords with his brother on the guitar. Hit: ‘Rhythm of the Rain’ (1963) – Their father, a driving school owner, drove them everywhere. He went solo from 1964. The Nijs felt strongly “made the urgency heard”, but when pop music was rapidly changing through beat music and psychedelics, he lost his audience again.

There were “seven lean years.” With competitor Johnny Lion, it was crashing as crowd pullers at Circus Boltini, he played in Musicals and Cabaret. But a turning point were success roles in the children’s television programs Oebele and like Bertram beer bread spot Can you tell me the way to Hamelen, sir?.

They were singer Boudewijn de Groot and copywriter Lennaert Nijgh who led De Nijs in the 1970s towards serious, narrative pop music. Songs as ‘Jan Klaassen de Trompetter’‘Malle Babbe’ and ‘Sister Ursula’. “I was lucky that I was allowed to sing those songs,” said De Nijs. “What they wrote for me suited me well.”

I did everything and lived through, but I never went out

The singer himself wrote few songs at all. He saw himself as a performer, leaning on songs that others wrote for him. For example, his former wife Belinda Meuldijk has always remained one of his regular songwriters. He also sang translated covers from, for example, Cliff Richard (‘Miss You Nights’: ‘Now the nights’). Or the German ‘und Es War Sommer’ by Peter Maffay: ‘Summer’ – with the now decisive text About how a 16-year-old boy was seduced by a 28-year-old woman.

The album With your eyes of The blissful ‘Sunday’ Was the Nijs’ final breakthrough in 1980. De Nijs was able to find all that attention, but there were also periods that he was less well – that he was maligned or when Dutch -language music fell into the background in the mid -1980s. Because he knew both sides of success, he was as good as he was, he knew.

That was not an arrogance. “I did everything and lived through, but I never went out.” He did, he said, everything to keep the thread tense. He finally had a number 1 hit at the age of 53: ‘Banger Hart’.

Own musical taste

As an interpreter of what was initially described as ‘Dutch entertainment music’, it was admirable how De Nijs became a fixture in Dutch pop music. De Nijs did his own genre, and more and more his own musical taste, he made what he liked and honest, from pop, rock to chansons. Recorded in New Orleans Finally free (2010) With Daniël Lohues he even touched a carefree country sound. He got an Edison for it.

The Nijs could still sing his profoundest songs, but his audience did not sang him if he didn’t sang ‘Malle Babbe’, he knew. He continued to like it too, by the way. And enhancing atmosphere. “When Adèle Bloemendaal sang, a listening song then, she didn’t say the word” ass “. Your tasty….! [Hij klapte toen even op de tafel]. As a performer, I just loved that piece well. ”

In his swan singing in the Ziggo Dome in 2022, those classics moved him. While the polonaise erupted as usual, the pop veteran raised his fist. “For you,” said Rob de Nijs, his eyes moist.

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