Europeans In Americana Music: Ad Vanderveen
The Moment That Matters
Blue Rose BLU CD 0301
by Marianne Ebertowski
 When I met amiable
Dutch singer-songwriter Ad Vanderveen in October 2001 in a dusty
dressing room at some godforsaken cultural center at the outskirts
of Europe's capital Brussels, I asked him about his plans and
he answered with a smile: "I still want to make the one
album that totally represents me. That album has to go all over
the world, and if it doesn't - what the hell? I'll just have
to make it, but then I hope that you will hear it." A year
later Ad Vanderveen has made that album and I have just heard
it. It is called The Moment That Matters and, even if
it's only four weeks into the new year, I am confident it will
make my Top Ten. So, who is Ad Vanderveen? Someone who could
answer this question a lot better than I can is Austin resident
Eliza Gilkyson, who has worked with Ad on several projects.
But I'll try anyway.
It is probably never quite fair to compare a less known artist
to well known ones, but I guess Ad Vanderveen will not chase
me with a hatchet when I call him a mixture of Neil Young and
Townes Van Zandt. In fact, with his new album he has just delivered
the very proof for my thesis himself. Accompanied by his faithful
electric band The O'Neils, Ad rocks like the ragged Canadian
in his best times and has even convinced Neil's sister Astrid
to sing with him. On the acoustic tracks, he reminds the listener
of the much missed melancholy poet from Ft. Worth, Texas. Apart
from Astrid Young, Ad has succeeded in convincing ex-British
ex-Texan Iain Matthews, David Olney, Eliza Gilkyson, and Jim
Morrison (no, not the dead guy, the very alive violin and mandolin
player) to perform with him. Ten of the twelve songs are originals.
Of those, my favorites are the shattering "Old Friend Loneliness"
with beautiful slide guitar played by Ad himself, the up-beat
Holly-Youngish "Take It On Faith" and, most of all,
the title song that only features Ad on vocal and various instruments
and Eliza Gilkyson. It's a song that delivers a moment of intense
beauty. But the real pièce de résistance is in
my opinion "Another Brother Gone", an ode to the one
and only Dutch rock star, Herman Brood, who committed suicide
by jumping from the Amsterdam Hilton on 11 July 2001. Ad had
played with Herman Brood's band The Wild Romace in the early
1980s and had taught Herman about country music. For Dutch music
lovers, that fatal jump on 7/11 2001 was "a moment that
mattered." Herman Brood jumping from the Amsterdam Hilton
for us was like - I don't know, maybe Elvis blowing his brains
out in the awareness of his own hopeless condition and some sort
of premonition of something evil to come. A year later Dutch
society looked unrecognizable - the rock'n'roll years seemed
to be over for good. But whatever it means in perspective, Ad
Vanderveen captures this moment of consternation exceptionally
well. Ad's own songs are completed by a very grungy version
of Gillian Welch and David Rawling's "Everything Is Free"
and David Olney's moving "If My Eyes Were Blind."
With The Moment That Matters, Ad Vanderveen has succeeded
in recording an album that matters.
Between the release of his recent album and his appearance at
the Folk Alliance Conference in Nashville, Ad Vanderveen, the
Dutch singer-songwriter who almost became a Canadian like many
of his folks, found some time to answer a few questions on his
love for the North American continent and its music.
"Ad, where are you from and when and how did you get
interested in "Americana music?"
"I'm from the Netherlands - the Amsterdam area. I grew
up listening to British Rock'n Roll and later to well known American
and Canadian artists like Bob Dylan, the Band, Neil Young, Jackson
Browne, James Taylor. Then I started digging deeper and got to
the lesser known ones."
"When and how did your professional career start?"
"It's hard to pin a moment on that. I chose a musical
career when I was 24, because I realized it was the only thing
that really mattered to me, but that doesn't mean the career
started then. I played in lots of bands and wrote songs pretty
much from the start. I always had other people in mind to sing
them, but when that didn't really happen, I started singing myself
more and more."
"Do you have a special relationship with the United States
in general and Texas in particular? What was the weirdest/funniest/best
experience you've had there so far?"
"Something pulls me there. The first time I went to North
America I traveled all over and liked Texas best. It was the
America I had hoped to find. And Canada, but my family's there
and I've visited since I was about seven, so that felt like home
to me already. Before that I had experienced Texan music in Amsterdam,
playing with a band called The Pride of Texas (who frequently
backed up singer-songwriter Gary P. Nunn). It wasn't really my
thing though, too rednecky."
"Who do you consider the greatest American/Texan singer-songwriter/musician
and why?"
"For some reason my greatest favorites are from Canada:
Neil Young, The Band, Joni Mitchell, to name a few. My favorite
Texan has to be Townes. I feel so at home with his songs, playing
and singing. Once I was called up to play a radio show with him
and at the last minute I had to cancel to play a gig with my
own band. That had priority. I still feel sorry about that.
Guy Clark is another one I always enjoy listening to."
"With which American/Texan musicians have you been working
so far?"
"I've been working with Eliza Gilkyson, who isn't really
Texan but lives in Austin, and I have done some playing and recording
with David Olney. He's also one of my favorites. Iain Matthews,
who is British but lived quite a few years in Texas, Astrid Young,
who's best known for singing with her brother Neil, and a few
others you probably have never heard of (and I haven't either
since...) But hang on, there's a few more: Al Kooper, Leland
Sklar (my favorite bass player in the world), Al Perkins, Flaco
Jimenez, Harry Stinson. All played on a record of mine I recorded
in Nashville in 1991 (Continuing Stories) with producer
Bill Halverson, probably best known from his work with Crosby,
Stills, Nash & Young and Eric Clapton. And I did a radio
show with Augie Meyers. There's also Steve Young, Santiago Jimenez
and probably some I don't recall right now."
"What was the most special experience with any of them?"
"I guess one of the greatest thrills I had was recording
with David Olney. We did a song of his that had impressed me
very much at one of his concerts, as a duet. It's called "The
Lean and Hungry Years" and it's on one of my records now.
But, really, there's so many special and intense musical adventures
that it's hard to think of one that stands out."
"Your new album The Moment That Matters has just
been released in Europea and the USA. Give me at least three
good reasons why Americans should listen to it."
"It's got a pretty good dynamic of Americana on there,
from soft acoustic to hard electric; it's got a timeless quality
to it, I think; and I try to go deep in my lyrics."
"Do you have any plans to tour in the States in the near
future?"
"Apart from playing at the Folk Alliance Conference in
Nashville on 6,7 and 8 February, I don't know yet."
"What do you consider the best four song lines you have
ever written?"
"My answer to that would be different every day. Today
I'd say:
always somewhere on my mind
like a dream I can't define
I don't know is it good or bad
can you miss what you never had?
("Another World")
*www.advanderveen.com
Contact Marianne Ebertowski at ebertowski-at-rockzilla.net
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