Connection

The musical live of my brother Gerard and mine were very different in the beginning. Of course the instruments we played were different, he was 4 years older than me and the 1950's were the Rock 'n' Roll years. My brother played in guitarbands while I was singing evergreens with my friend Richard Vries.

Our musical lives started to come together with a group formed by my cousin Pim Schwärzer (gtr), Rob van Haarlem (dr) and singer Frans van Aken. Frans played guitar too, but what they needed was a bassplayer so my brother Gerard joined this group. They called themselves "The Limited Noise". I didn't play in the group but dit some correspondence and contributed a little on a musical level. I went with them when they performed.

Left to right: Frans van Aken, Pim Schwärzer, Gerard de Boer en Rob van Haarlem.

The group broke up eventually: Pim Schwärzer joined the Ekseption to replace their guitarist for a short while. (In later years Ekseption became a very famous group in my country, when organplayer Rick van der Linden joined the group and became their leader).
Drummer Rob van Haarlem also left. The Limited Noise however went on.....

The letter explains that drummer Rob van Haarlem joined the army and that the sologuitar had been replaced by an electronic organ. (played by me). The new drummer was Hans Meeuwig, the same guy I played with in the circus. The repertoire changed a little too.

I remember Penny Lane.
I always listened to Radio Caroline, Radio London and Radio Veronica. I think Radio Caroline (I was member too) was the first station to play the new Beatles record "Penny Lane".
I taped it and tried to find the chords. That same evening the band got together and Frans van Aken wrote down the lyrics. (We puzzled a while on the word "hourglass").
Then we rehearsed it. The next evening was a saturday and the band played it for the first time. In my country hardly anyone had heard it and no one knew it was a Beatles-song. The band had to play it several times on request and some of the people asked if we wrote it ourselves. It was a success and for me, as a Beatles fan, it was proof that the Beatles were really great composers.

I remember singing too. It was also a Beatlessong and I played guitar and sang. But I forgot the words. The audience knew the lyrics better than me and had to let them sing....... I decided never to sing before an audience again. And I never did.

This performance, on the 11th of february 1967 in Haarlem, was the only one we had. My cousin Pim came to see us. He already had to leave the Ekseption, because the guitarist came back.

My brother and I were not very happy too with the new Limited Noise, so we decided to stop. We wanted to play a different music style. My brother knew of a couple of guys and we went to Sloterdijk, where they rehearsed, and listened to them. We liked the drummer Chris and the singer Cor and decided to continue with them. Their group was called "The Connection". However we didn't join the group but formed a new group. First we used the same name - because Chris and Cor left, that group did not exist anymore and we liked the name.
The guy who came up with the name Connection wasn't in, so he but phoned us and said he didn't want us to use that name. We decided to change it to "The Soul Connection". Pim Schwärzer, who learned a lot during his time with Ekseption, joined us.

Left to right: Herco de Boer, Pim Schwärzer, Gerard de Boer, Cor Groot and Chris Schuchard.

With this formation we were very happy and played a lot.
The photo above was taken in a classroom of the Burgemeester Tellegen MULO, a secundary school my brother used to attend and Cor Groot and I were still attending. Pim Schwärzer met his wife there.

For a few years we were the houseband of the T.O.V., a club of students of the Tellegen MULO, who organised dances. I placed two announcements on this site, one with the name "The Connection", the other with "The Soul Connection". But we were the same group.

If you can read Dutch, click the icons in the left and on the right.

We had a large repertoire of Soul- and Rhythme and Blues songs. With not very good recording equipment (an old recorder and one microphone) we recorded ourselves and some of these recordings you will find on the next page if you click the pictures.