Royal disques

Wednesday, 24 September 2008

In my wall of records are about ten records with this sleeve:
You have to read the small print to find out, but these flexi-records are advertisement records. At least, untill it is proven wrong, I file them under advertisement records. These ”Royal Disques” were sold/given away in the 60’s by Wehkamp, a Dutch post order warehouse. On most of the records that I have you can hear the same band: Kid Orbis & sein Orchester. Oder sein Sextett. Not all songs are instrumental jazz songs, although many are.
But there are a few exceptions, like the record with Dina van Beeren as lead singer, accompanied by Den Rockies. They do something that probably was meant to appeal to a more rock’n’roll oriented audience. All the vocal songs are in german, but Dina van Beeren was a Dutch singer. At least, that was told to me by Henri Smeets, who has a Dutch rock’n’roll archive. Fifteen years ago I traded records and cassettes with him, but I have lost contact around the time that CDr’s replaced tapes. I do have some CDr’s that he recorded, but most of the music i got from Henri is on tapes. All with obscure Dutch rock’n’roll records. When I tried to find his archive site, I first couldn’t find it: all I could find was info about Henri’s own musical career. He didn’t sing or play guitar when I was in contact with him, but I remember that he told me that he began learning to play guitar. When I heard his first demo’s, eight years ago or so, I was not very enthusiast. This guy seemed way too old and too lame tome to make the kind of rock’n’roll that was the basis for our contact. In fact, I didn’t have the courage to say the truth to him. So I was very surprised to hear excerpts from his new CD: he has become far better than I ever expected and I was almost jealous when I listened to the excerpts of his recordings. You can hear them if you go here and then scroll about fifteen minutes to halfway of the page. I tried to find out how I could order the CD, but I gave up after half an hour. The site is like a labyrinth! But I do want that CD, so if you can tell me where I can get it, please do.
Anyway, Henri told me that Dina van Beeren was Dutch. I tried to check that tonight, but I couldn’t find ANY info on her. Neither on Kid Orbis or the Royal Disques label or any of the other bands on the Wehkamp flexi-records that I have. Very strange. Maybe I just have a bad day?
Here is Dina van Beeren mit den Rockies, singing ”Yes you little boy”:

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