After more than forty years, Jan Stam (67) will soon stop as Drenthe’s pop consultant. During that time he set up a stronghold of music festivities and places where promising artists from Drenthe made their breakthrough.
“I have always wanted to serve musicians as an ‘enabler’,” Stam says in the Radio Drenthe program Cassata. “And especially the musicians who are ambitious, want to progress in music and want to do everything for that.”
Although Stam could have retired in May, he is postponing this until the summer holidays. He started singing in churches as part of the Christian boys’ choir, and in that same setting he will come full circle on June 11. The provincial pop advisor hopes to do this in a big way at Podium34, in the old Willibrord Church in Borger.
“I think that is the most beautiful stage in Drenthe,” says Stam. “It is one of the few stages that pays attention to Drenthe talent and national emerging talent.”
And that is what Stam has been all about in recent decades. Despite his own musical singing talent, he preferred to help other musicians break through, and he certainly does not regret that. “I started out as a musician, but at the same time I also just wanted to organize things,” the pop consultant remembers well. “The drivers are on stage, and we are the enablers behind it.”
Last year, Stam was allowed to be in the spotlight himself, when he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Popgala Noord in Groningen; a recognition for all the work he has put into Drenthe bands and music talent over the years. “I thought that was crazy,” he says. “It was one of the first awards I received personally.”
Stam has helped other musicians through, among other things, the Pop Drenthe Foundation, his own idea that quickly grew into a professional organization. With this he created his job as a pop consultant. From that role he built a music empire, with festivals and places where Drenthe talents can go. Well-known examples of bands that broke through under Stam’s guidance are Skik and Tangarine.
Yet Stam himself remains mostly down-to-earth about it. “Those boys have so much talent, even without me they would have gotten there in the end. Only it might have been a little more difficult.”
By enjoying his retirement, Stam leaves a big hole in the Drenthe music landscape. ‘If that happens, Drenthe screwed‘, was what the Tangarine band members said. “It’s very nice that those boys say that,” says Stam. “That means I did something good after all.”
Stam can now confidently transfer his life’s work as a pop consultant to the next musical generation. “If I stop now, there will be an infrastructure, with festivals and places where Drenthe talents can go,” he says. “And that continues now, even without me.”
His retirement also provides new opportunities, because a musical jack-of-all-trades like Stam never really finished playing. “I’ll soon have more time to make music,” he says with a smile.
In addition, Stam will start working as a volunteer at the Drenthe Archives in September. Until then, he will transfer all his musical material, including the first demos of Daniël Lohues and Tangarine, to the archives to have the entire collection digitized. Stam: “That has been wonderful work for over forty years. It is actually a miracle that I have been able to do this work for so long.”
