For the majority of people the name Patricia Paay will mean very little. However in the Netherlands she is a mega star. She is a Dutch singer, radio host, glamour model and television personality. In the Netherlands, she is well known for her musical career, which spans over four decades. She is also regularly featured on Dutch television and in Dutch tabloid media. Singer Yvonne Keeley is her sister.
She was married to Adam Curry, and American-Dutch radio presenter, MTV VJ, business man and also the nephew of former CIA official and United States Ambassador to Korea, Donald Gregg. The couple were married between 1989 and 2009. They have a daughter ,Christina Curry.
In 1984, Paay was the first glamour model in the Dutch edition of Playboy. In 2009, Paay posed for the December issue of the Dutch version of the magazine at age 60, still stunning. She is 71 today.
What most people outside of the Netherlands don’t know is that more then likely will have heard Patricia Paay. In the 1980’s Dutch produced came up with the concept of Stars on 45. This was novelty pop act which was briefly very popular throughout Europe, and in the United States, and Australia. They recorded medleys from the Beatles and other bands. Patricia Paay was one of the backing singers. A spin off was The Star Sisters together with her sister Yvonne Keeley and another singer Sylvana van Veen . they performed as The Andrews Sisters in a medley that charted internationally in 1984.
I remember during music lessons at school we would discuss the 2 super groups that emerged from the 1970’s. The first one was Queen and the other one was ABBA.
Both band of course did not start out with those names. Queen was called Smile first and ABBA’s origin was in the pop, folk and jazz scene of Sweden. Benny Andersson was a member of a popular Swedish pop-rock group, the Hep Stars.
Björn Ulvaeus began his musical career at the age of 18 ,as a singer and guitarist, as the frontman of the Hootenanny Singers, a popular Swedish folk–skiffle group. He started writing English-language songs for his group, and even had a brief solo career alongside. The Hootenanny Singers and the Hep Stars sometimes crossed paths while touring.
Anni-Frid “Frida” Lyngstad sang from the age of 13 with various dance bands, and worked mainly in a jazz-oriented cabaret style. She also formed her own band, the Anni-Frid Four. In the middle of 1967, she won a national talent competition with “En ledig dag” (“A Day Off”) a Swedish version of the bossa nova song “A Day in Portofino”.
Agnetha Fältskog was the singer with a local dance band headed by Bernt Enghardt who sent a demo recording of the band to Karl Gerhard Lundkvist. The demo tape featured a song written and sung by Agnetha: “Jag var så kär” (“I Was So in Love”). In 1972, Fältskog starred as Mary Magdalene in the original Swedish production of Jesus Christ Superstar and attracted some very good reviews.
On June 1972 the four released their debut single called “People Need Love” but the single was released with the band name ‘Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid’ not the catchiest of named to be honest, so in 1973 the band and their manager Stig Anderson changed the name to ABBA.
In 1975 the band had their international break through with “Waterloo” at the 1974 Eurovision song contest, which was held in Brighton on the south coast of the United Kingdom, on April 6. However Waterloo was not the first choice of the band to be used at the Song contest, They initially planned to enter the song “Hasta Mañana”for the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest.
I think things would have turned out very different for the band. I reckon very few people would have remembered the name ABBA.
But as we all know they entered “Waterloo” for the contest making musical history and a legacy that still lives on to this day. Even young kids will know the song Waterloo and ABBA , mostly because of teh musical Mamma Mia and its sequel though.
The musical did spark a revival for ABBA music although their music has always been popular. In a May 2013 interview, Fältskog, aged 63 at the time, stated that an ABBA reunion would never occur: “I think we have to accept that it will not happen, because we are too old and each one of us has their own life. Too many years have gone by since we stopped, and there’s really no meaning in putting us together again” It has been rumoured that they were offered a billion US Dollars to tour again, but I believe that was all though, rumours.
The two men were and still are successful as song writers and composes. In 1983 they began collaborating with Tim Rice in writing songs for the musical project Chess. Which had 2 massive hits with “I know him so well” and “One night in Bangkok”
All of this though started off with the song Waterloo ,inspired by the 18 June 1815 battle of Waterloo.
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I just want to make this perfectly clear from the outset I have no issues with Greta Thunberg. I admire what she does and stands for, but I just don’t fully agree with her.
Today I questioned in a Facebook group if we should take her word as gospel.
To my shock I got a reply comparing her to Anne Frank. After Peta’s comparison of the killing of chickens to the Holocaust. I didn’t think anything else could surprise me.
Below are the comments and replies to that post.
John D- This sentence immediately disqualifies this opinion piece. “In sharp contrast to these climate realists, the climate alarmists have long admitted that they cannot defend their theory that humans are causing catastrophic global warming in public debate. ”
· Reply · 1h
Dirk de Klein Dirk de Klein So we are disqualifying a report published in a reputable media outlet…
What a lot of people don’t realize is that Camp Westerbork was actually established as a refugee camp for Jews escaping the Nazi regime in Germany and Austria.and who had illegally entered the Netherlands. It was established by the Dutch government in the summer of 1939.
In July 1942, the Nazis took over the camp and turned it into a transition camp. Jews arrested in the Netherlands were taken to the camp and put on transport. Transport trains arrived at Westerbork every Tuesday from July 1942 to September 1944, and left with close to 100,000 jews.But also Roma and Sinti were transported from Westerbork.
The Deportations were part of the responsibilities of Gestapo sub-Department IV-B4, which was headed by Adolf Eichmann.
Although the camp was relatively “humane” by Nazi standards , it was cruel in other ways. Jewish inmates with families were housed in 200 interconnected cottages The cottages contained…
The Holocaust is by far the worst era of mankind. It has shown us on how a supposedly cultured and sophisticated society, murdered millions because they were deemed not to have a place in that society.
But this didn’t come as a lighting from the blue. It was brewing for decades. Two political movements were at the heart of it.
It was the far right extreme Nazis who did the killing, but the far left played a crucial part too. The so called Weimar culture wanted Germany to become a place of great liberal values, but for some these values were too liberal. Many saw it as a new Sodom and Gomorrah. The fact that not everyone felt comfortable living in a society where everything was possible, was sometimes ignored and their concerns weren’t always listened to.
This gave opportunities to the far right movement to recruit members.
Vital Signs is a 1984 album released by one of my all time favourite bands Survivor. I was a bit reluctant to buy the album because Survivor had changed singers, from Dave Bickler to Jimi Jamison. However it turned out to be one of their best albums.
On it there was a track called “It’s the singer not the song” and I actually forgot how good that album and that particular track were.
I also think it is a true statement that a good singer makes the song. I was never a great Bob Dylan fan but I like a lot of his songs , sung by other singers.
This blog is a tribute to some of the finest Rock singers, well at least in my opinion. So sit back, relax and enjoy.
The Ohrdruf camp was a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp, and the first Nazi camp liberated by US troops.
Created in November 1944 near the town of Gotha, Germany, Ohrdruf supplied forced labor in the form of concentration camp prisoners for railway construction leading to a proposed communications center, which was never completed due to the rapid American advance. In late March 1945, the camp had a prisoner population of some 11,700, but in early April the SS evacuated almost all the prisoners on death marches to Buchenwald.
The SS guards killed many of the remaining prisoners who were too ill to walk to the railcars.
The 4th Armored Division and the 89th Infantry of the Third US Army liberated Ohrdruf on April 4, 1945.
When the soldiers of the 4th Armored Division entered the camp, they discovered piles of bodies, some covered with lime, and…
Who doesn’t know that classic hit Vienna by Ultravox? We all remember that video which so prominently featured Ultravox’s front man and singer Midge Ure.
However it took quite a bit of effort to get Vienna made. Ultravox started off in 1974 but were named Tiger Lily at that stage. The band was formed by Dennis Leigh aka John Foxx. On 14 March 1975 they released their only single titled “Ain’t Misbehavin'”,which was a cover of the classic Fats Waller jazz song from 1929. Tiger Lily’s version would feature in a soft porn film.
Because of some changes in the line up the band decided to change their name, so between 1975 and 1976 they were known as The Zips, Fire of London, London Soundtrack, and The Damned, there was already a band called the Damned so they eventually settled for ‘Ultravox!’. Some time in 1978, the group also dropped the exclamation mark, becoming simply “Ultravox”
That still would not be the end of it . John Foxx left the band in 1979 and was replaced by Midge Ure , who had temporarily been playing with Irish hard rock band Thin Lizzy on their American tour, replacing Gary Moore. Midge Ure had also worked with a band called Visage together with Billy Currie who was the violinist of Ultravox . For all you keen music fans you will recognize the name Visage, they had a massive hit with the single “Fade to Grey” which was released in November 1980.
Another thing which few people will know is Midge Ure’s involvement in Live Aid and Band Aid. Not only did he co write the single “Do they know it is Christmas time” he also organized most of the bands for the legendary concerts. He received very little credit for that from Bob Geldof. For those of you who watched Top of the Pops on BBC in the 1980’s will remember the theme music. It was called Yellow Pearl which came from Phil Lynott’s solo album Solo in Soho . The song was also co written by Midge Ure.
It all began on July 5, 1943. At the other end of the world, the United States was involved in a bitter war against the Axis forces. The Axis forces wanted to control Europe and the Pacific, while the Allies fought for peace. The Nazi’s had begin their last offensive against Kursk, and the Australian and U.S. Army forces under General MacArthur were struggling to fight back the Japanese at Buna in New Guinea.
While the citizens of Boise City followed the news closely, pilots at Dalhart Army Air Base in Texas were preparing four B-17 bombers for a practice run. The nighttime training mission was to begin a few hours after dark. The navigator was supposed to lead the flight group from Dalhart base to drop bombs in a range near Conlen, Texas. The target was a small square area, lit by four lights at each corner. It was…
AFC Ajax is one of the most well known football clubs in Europe if not the world.Aside from dozens of national trophies it also won 12 international trophies, a feat repeated by only a few other clubs.
Historically, Ajax was popularly seen as having “Jewish roots”. Although not an official Jewish club like the city’s WV-HEDW, Ajax has had a Jewish image since the 1930s when the home stadium was located next to a Jewish neighbourhood of Amsterdam-Oost and opponents saw many supporters walking through the Nieuwmarkt/Waterloopleinbuurt (de Jodenhoek—the “Jews’ corner”) to get to the stadium.
Die-hard Ajax supporters call themselves “Joden” — Dutch for “Jews” — a nickname that reflects both the team’s and the city’s Jewish heritage. This nickname for Ajax fans dates back to before World War II, when Amsterdam was home to most of the Netherlands’ 140,000 Jews.
![B-17 "Flying Fortress"](https://usercontent1.hubstatic.com/2523362_f520.jpg "B-17 "Flying Fortress"")
