“A true artist. And a fantastic person.” Music producer Ad Kraamer from Drunen is lyrical about André van Duin. The folk comedian, who is now also a furore as a TV presenter, is celebrating his 75th birthday this Sunday. Ad worked with Van Duin for years and that led to several big hits.
In 1976 Ad and André got to know each other for the first time. “At that time, the record company CNR asked if I would like to produce something with Van Duin. Fine, dude, I said, and we became acquainted. Then we recorded a first single, entitled ‘I am invisible André’. That ended up on place six in the hit parade,” Ad said on Sunday in the radio program ‘Weekend’ on Omroep Brabant.
In total, Ad and André have worked together for about five or six years. Several big hits came from that. Sometimes unexpectedly. “Every year there had to be a carnival record in the period January-February. So I called Dré. He had nothing at the time. Come on over, he said. He was still living in a windmill in North Holland at the time. walked around there in his socks, like some kind of penguin and sang ‘tatata’.”
That didn’t make Ad very warm. “We can’t come up with that Dré, I said. But he had nothing more than this. When the tea was finished, I left again and I called the director and showed what André’s idea was. You can’t be serious , said the director. But I told him there was nothing else.”
The song was subsequently recorded in the studio. “When we had sung it, I said: ‘Dré, it’s really nothing, isn’t it? No, he said. We still have to do something about that. Then we made up all kinds of things. An announcement, different voices. ‘It has become something like ‘thick for each other’. We added this to it and then Joop van den Ende ordered suits for the TV. Penguin suits. When it came on TV and the penguin polonaise was run, it went completely wild!”
And it didn’t stop there. Ad’s collaboration with André led to several hits. Some even became true classics such as ‘I have very large cauliflower’ and ‘There is a horse in the hallway’.
In 1980 Ad received a special request from the record company. He had signed a contract with the Dutch national team. “We have Orange under contract. We have to record a record with that, with André”, Ad was told. “I then called André. “Dré, we have the Dutch national team under contract. Now we have to make a football record.”
But the artist doesn’t care about sports. “I don’t buy anything for that,” Ad told him. “We sat together and that’s how the song ‘Nederland die has de bal’ came from. It ended up in second place in the charts!”
Van Duin is a true entertainer, Ad agrees. “He’s got a smile on his ass, that’s true,” he nods. “Dré is a real artist. Very creative!” But according to Ad, André is very different in ordinary life. “That will surprise you, but it really is. When you work with André, he is very calm. We got along very well. He is a fantastic person.”