Douwe Sterkenburgh. A man many musicians from the Southeast (and beyond) will have fond memories of. So is Lisette Schriever. “He was really a music friend to me,” she says. Douwe helped her out of the bedroom and onto the stage.
“I never dared and he was the one who said: ‘Come on. Come on girlie’. And that was not only with me, but he did that with so many people.” Lisette has benefited greatly from Douwe’s encouraging words. “He just gave people a stage and the confidence to do that.” Douwe Sterkenburgh died at the end of last year as a result of a brain tumor.
“The cheerful musical friend”, that’s how she describes Douwe. “I think a lot of people will call him a friend, but he was really everyone’s friend. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him angry.”
Douwe performed not only as a musician, but also as a driving force in the Drenthe music world. Famous and infamous are the ‘Monday night music sessions’ in Emmen. Many musicians gathered there to jam and many collaborations have arisen. “All to teach the musicians to play together,” says Lisette. “You can play guitar on your own, but you learn more together. Douwe was the one who made sure that happened.”
Just before his death, Lisette wanted to visit Douwe, but he was too bad for visitors. She was at a loss and the unfulfilled desire to see him again resulted in a song. “Then suddenly at night this song was on paper”, she refers to the lyrics of the song. “I suddenly wrote that to still sing it to him, yes.” She recorded the song together with her regular musicians Marco Geerdink and Chris Vrijbloed. The song was later released.
“Douwe was music. We thought if you want to honor Douwe, you can only do that with music.” next to the number ‘Douwe’she also wrote the song ‘Otherwise’. The song is about the period after Douwe’s death and that everything was different.