I
Fifties

The Levenslied and Kleinkunst culture sees a growing popularity in the fifties. Singer and guitarplayer Eddy Christiani even makes the American hitparade. In Amsterdam artists like Johnny Jordaan and Willy Alberti mixed Italian cantautori culture with Levenslied into a new subgenre. Rotterdam’ composer and producer Johnny Hoes starts writing and producing for Eddy Christiani but it was with his discovery of Mary Servaes Bey, known as Zangeres zonder Naam (singer without a name), that he found his muse. In 1958 he starts a radioshow on Radio Luxemburg under the title Uitzending zonder naam (Broadcast without a name). By mixing Levenlied with Hoempa he gave it it’s current identity of catchy, simple rhythms and melodies and sweet, highly sentimental lyrics.

After to Indonesian independence on August 17, 1945, many Indo (Dutch-Indonesian) musicians repatriated to the Netherlands. One of the effects of this cultural process was that, in the mid-1950s, an instrumental music genre called Indorock became popular.

Other significant influences on Indorock included American country & western, and the rock & roll repertoire played on radio stations in Indonesia via American (AFN) stations from the Philippines and Australia. Introduced with rock’n roll in 1955 Dutch spin off follow suit with groups like the Fouryo's (who have a hit with a Dutch translation of the Everly Brothers-hit Bye bye love  the Butterflies, Sweet Sixteen. These however miss the rawness that the Indo rock does have. So Rock little baby of mine by The Tielman Brothers (1958) is considered as the first Dutch popsong (although sung in English). Allegedly the Tielman brothers have been a major influence on the formation of the Beatles at the time. They themselves have never profited however of the success since (indo) rock stayed an underground phenomenon until the sixties.