Bram Vermeulen

Bram Vermeulen (13 October 1946 – 4 September 2004) was a Dutch artist in both theatre and music. In fact this was his second and third career. First he became on the age of 16 famous as the youngest volleybal-international in the Dutch history. He played all kind of instruments, mostly piano. He had a raw voice. The themes of his songs vary from philosophical ("De Steen" for example) to simple (like "Een Doodgewone Jongen"). His texts have the eerie feel of the 1960-ties suburbs with misted windows, potatoes on the table and a hard working father and a mother who lost all joy in life. He also tackled serious themes of domestic abuse ("Bont & Blauw"), divorce ("Rode Wijn"), modern parenting ("Pauline") and teenage anxiety ("De wedstrijd"). They contrast with the songs which give you the sheer joy of life and love such as "Klein Liedje" and "1+1 = 1". He started his career in music with "Neerlands Hoop in Bange Dagen", a cabaret group with Bram Vermeulen and Freek de Jonge. But when Freek went solo, Bram decided to do the same. In an interview Bram said: "Neerlands Hoop was Freek's development, after the split my development started." He started the group "Bram Vermeulen and the Toekomst". Bram Vermeulen is seen as one of the first people to truly make 'nederpop' (dutch pop music) after he split with Freek de Jonge. Before Dutch pop music was in terms of musical-lines basically English pop music with Dutch Lyrics. He is credited as being one of the first, if not the first to actually make the music and the musical lines within dutch pop music to fit the dutch language. A theme running through his later work is his belief in reincarnation. After a documentary on the First World War he presented, Vermeulen became convinced that he in fact was a French lieutenant in a previous life. This resulted in the album "Oorlog aan Oorlog". Although he had a steady following in the Netherlands, his popularity and solo-success was notably bigger in Belgium. Bram died of a heartattack in his sleep on September 4th 2004 when he was in Tuscany, Italy.