Bert Ruiter, former bassist of the bands Focus and Earth & Fire, has passed away. That reports his band Focus, in which Ruiter was for years, on social media. Rider is 75 years old.
Ruiter, who was born in Hilversum in 1946, played the guitar from the age of twelve and later went on to play the bass guitar. He played in various groups, accompanied Herman van Veen for a season and from 1971 was part of the rock group Focus of flautist Thijs van Leer and guitarist Jan Akkerman, who played the hits Sylvia on Hocus Pocus released.
Focus stopped in 1978 and after that Ruiter became a member of Earth & Fire. With that group he scored the number 1 hit Weekend, which was sold more than 100,000 times in the Netherlands. Later Ruiter worked with his partner Jerney Kaagman, with whom he was also in Earth & Fire, on other music projects. He was also active as a producer and arranger.
The band Focus announces on Facebook that they will miss Ruiter. “Thank you for all your music. We wish Jerney a lot of strength with this loss.”
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