Hans van Hemert was a master in creating pop songs that are difficult to erase from memory. His craftsmanship yielded hits such as ‘You’re the greatest lover’ (by girl trio Luv’), ‘How do you do’ (the duo Mouth & MacNeal) and ‘We love Oranje’ (André Hazes). He belonged to the young generation that gave the popular songs of that time a pop sound in the 60s and 70s. In recent years he has been largely out of action due to prostate cancer. He died on Monday, aged 79.
Van Hemert, son of the renowned TV director Willy van Hemert, managed to get a job at the major record company Phonogram, a subsidiary of Philips, at the age of seventeen. At eighteen he wrote the music for the TV series created by his father The glass city.
As a producer he was responsible for the recordings of various pop groups of that time. After a few years he started forming beat groups himself. He achieved his greatest successes with the duos Mouth & MacNeal and Sandra & Andres and the all-girl trio Luv’. He gathered the artists, wrote most of the songs and produced the records. He also had the final say in the choice of repertoire. The Luv’ singers actually thought Van Hemert’s songs were too childish, but their opinion was irrelevant. In the book Hall of Fame of Nederpop Van Hemert himself said: “In essence, they are indeed children’s songs that I wrote. But I made sure that the decoration, the frame around the painting, was made of gold.”
International success
Mouth & MacNeal became internationally known for their participation in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 with the song ‘I see a star’. In the final she reached an honorable third place, after ABBA and Gigliola Cinquetti.
Luv’ broke through in 1978 with ‘UOMe’, the opening song from the TV series It’s that late again by Wim T. Schippers and associates. The song soon became known as ‘Waldolala’, the name of the nightclub run by Sjef van Oekel that was at the center of the ridiculous events. Another success song of Luv’ was ‘Trojan horse’which was particularly striking because of the bagpipe melody that was incorporated into it. Van Hemert had a good ear for these kinds of gimmicks.
Sometimes such gimmicks came about by accident. The seductive ‘shalalalalala’ in ‘UOMe’ was a result of the fact that Van Hemert had not yet had time to write a suitable text on those notes. It sounded so good that the reserve text became the final one.
Luv’ grew into an international phenomenon, but the fame did not last long. Mutual quarrels put an end to its continued existence in 1983. And battles continued for years about the distribution of the proceeds.
André Hazes
Other successes were ‘The elephant song’ in 1975, written for the World Wildlife Fund and sung by Australian singer Kamahl, and ‘We love Orange’with which André Hazes revived his faltering career in 1988. Afterwards, Van Hemert was often asked to create new football anthems. But his response was always: “I can’t outdo myself.”
In the meantime, his oeuvre became increasingly versatile. For example, he produced records with Ramses Shaffy and Liesbeth List, and also wrote songs for the TV choir Children for Children, including the well-known ‘Meidengroep’, a funny reference to his own Luv’ past.
In recent years he fell out of the picture due to his illness, although he was in the news this summer because the American rapper Eminem sampled a melody from ‘Land of milk and honey’, a b-side by Mouth & MacNeil from 1971. his music in rotation.
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