Doe Maar’s songs have been immortalized in the Dutch collective consciousness, but Henny Vrienten was far from finished. In fact, in recent years the pleasure of his new compositions has exploded. On Monday it was announced that the singer, composer and bassist had died of lung cancer at the age of 73.
The artistic life of Henny Vrienten had three press moments that shook the Dutch pop world. The first took place in 1984, when Vrienten had been world famous in the Netherlands for a few years as the singer/bassist of Doe Maar.
It had never been shown before. Dutch pop news in the eight hours news, but on Wednesday, February 22, 1984, it was Harmen Siezen who reported the separation of Doe Maar to millions of TV viewers. The most successful pop group in the Netherlands at that time would give two more farewell concerts on April 14 in De Maaspoort in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. Also special: the KRO broadcast the afternoon concert live on television. The street scene of young girls wearing fluorescent green and pink – the word ‘girlie’ was often associated with Doe Maar – would come to an end.
The second time was on November 1, 1999. Doe Maar was together again. Not only would a new Doe Maar album be released in 2000, Finished, the reunited band would give no fewer than 16 concerts in the Rotterdam Ahoy. A record.
The cards flew away, and several more reunion tours were to follow. that of autumn 2021, Body to Body, should have been the last. Both Vrienten and fellow singer and composer Ernst Jansz then wanted to devote their time to other projects. But that last tour never came, because on September 22, a week before the start, the third press release came like a bomb: the entire tour was canceled due to illness of Henny Vrienten. The seriousness of the situation was especially clear by the word ‘cancelled’ instead of the hoped-for ‘postponed’.
Vrienten had been diagnosed with lung cancer, which would eventually kill him in just over six months, aged 73. That is a pity for the whole of cultural Netherlands, because Vrienten was so much more than a pop singer, but above all a shame for Vrienten himself, who was still brimming with creativity. Up to the last moment he developed plans, sought collaborations and seemed to have rediscovered his love for pop music through son Xander, who also plays bass.
The Rumbones
For example, last year he could be the main guest in the VPRO program On Stage tell enthusiastically about the young artists Froukje and Hang Youth, already selected by Vrienten to perform with. A third album by Strange Kostgangers, the trio that Vrienten formed with Boudewijn de Groot and George Kooymans, was already in the final mixing phase when disaster struck. He also worked on the musical De Koning van Amsterdam, and wrote plenty of songs. Had it not been for that rotten disease, the pop world would have been able to expect a lot from the man who in the eighties had shifted his musical passion to film soundtracks and TV tunes.
In that pop world, Vrienten makes his entrance rather cautiously. He grew up in Tilburg and, like many of his peers, played in beat bands in the sixties. In 1977 he founded the reggae band the Rumbones with Ernst Jansz. This resulted in Doe Maar a year later, although it will take two years before Vrienten replaces singer Piet Dekker.
The second album from Doe Maar, Skunk (1981) with the typical green-pink cover of Doe Maar, unlike the debut album, it is a hit. The reggae sound on it mixes well with the British ska music by Madness and The Specials, which was popular in the Dutch clubs at the time. Since 1 day or 2 (32 Years) becomes a radio hit and ends up in the Top 40. Doe Maar is even more of a band for hipsters than for teenage girls. That someone who sings about: ‘It’s a bit strange/32 years trembling on my legs’, not much later, turns the hearts of a much younger audience, remains amazing. But the mass hysteria that the band with already a year later the album Doris Day and other pieces And especially 4us (1983) is actually unexpected for everyone. 4us is platinum before it hit stores. The bomb and pa become number 1 hits. Having fun playing, which Vrienten and Jansz want so much, is no longer available due to the hordes of screaming and fainting girls.
Internal struggles
The fact that things were not going well among themselves, remained private for a long time. When Doe Maar broke up in 1984, everyone believed it was because they were tired of mass hysteria. That there was more going on, such as the division of songs and copyrights between Jansz and Vrienten, would only come to light later.
It is strange when Vrienten comes out with a solo album a few weeks before Doe Maar gives the last concerts – a pretty good one by the way: No Ballad† And no promotion, because Vrienten has had enough of that for years. The reasonable success of the record is mainly due to the song if you win that Vrienten sings with Herman Brood.
Every now and then Vrienten releases an album, but his main focus is on composing film music. From the soundtrack for The prey (Vivian Pieters, 1985) Vrienten will provide music to dozens of films. He also composes furiously for television programs like Clock house and sesame street, for which he has written more than a hundred songs since 1999. Also the wonderful music that VPROs have played for years Dead Poets Almanac introduced is by Vrienten’s hand.
Enjoy Do Maar
The years without Doe Maar are doing him good, he doesn’t really need pop music. But when Mojo’s generous offer comes in 1999 for a series of concerts in Ahoy, it starts to excite. The band even goes into the studio for the album Finished that doesn’t open mindlessly with Everything still works.
Everything still works on stage. The concerts are a euphoric and ecstatic nostalgia party such as we rarely experience in the Netherlands. Doe Maar also knows how to seduce a new generation into happy dances with songs like lovesick and Belle Helene, while the older youth in songs like The bomb and Is this all heard things they didn’t want to hear in it fifteen years earlier.
It will not stay with that one large Ahoy series, time and again you can see how Vrienten enjoys the spotlight. He is still very good at singing and playing bass. Doe Maar seems to give him energy now, where it tired him so much in the eighties.
While composing for films and TV may be his day job, he has continued to sing, pop music and songwriting until the very end, and with more pleasure than ever, it seems.
Poetry fanatic
Writing lyrics is perhaps the closest thing to what Vrienten’s other great passion was: poetry. Not only did he have an enormous ready knowledge of Dutch poetry, he was also a fanatic reader and collector of poetry collections. Henny Vrienten reading with his soft voice and Brabant accent, a glass of good white wine within reach, it is definitely a thing of the past. Doe Maar’s songs have been immortalized in the collective consciousness, but Vrienten was far from finished. All that music and poetry in his head, with which he passed away, and which he still wished to share. Cultural Netherlands will be deprived of this and will miss Henny Vrienten. He was much more than a pop icon. A versatile musician and composer with a great sense of poetry has passed away in him.
In 2019 Gijs Groenteman talked to Henny Vrienten about his favorite music in a more than two-hour interview. Listen back below.
Or listen via Spotify, Apple podcast or google podcast†