George Kooymans - founder, lead guitarist and main songwriter of Golden Earring - is 75 today

[highplainsdem]

10. Thanks for explaining! It's always interesting to hear what's behind individual

reactions to songs/performances, and that's a really helpful explanation.

And since the studio track is different, I'll post that below.

Yes, Cesar and Rinus were a great rhythm section. I ran across a Dutch TV show specifically about that a while back, but couldn't find it searching quickly last night. It was in Dutch anyway and I don't recall any captions, let alone English ones.

I can't help wondering what might have happened with the band if Cesar had joined the Who, when invited, and Rinus had agreed to play bass with Jimi Hendrix. From what I've read, the other three band members had made it clear at the times these offers/invitations were made that they would understand Rinus and later Cesar wanting to work with more famous artists, and wouldn't want to stand in the way of their leaving. But they didn't want to leave. Very close-knit band. George had fallen in love with Rinus's younger sister when they were both in their early teens (Rinus is two years older than George, the oldest member of the band) and he was either already married to her or engaged by the time Rinus got that invitation from Hendrix (it did just occur to me that Rinus's sister might have been very much against his leaving Golden Earring). And although Cesar joined the band fairly late, not till 1970, they pretty quickly became family for him, and I remember seeing something about how much George had helped him after his mother died. Plus they'd all been closer to Keith Moon than to the other members of the Who, and it's possible that would have made it harder for Cesar to step in to replace Keith. Whatever the exact reasons, they stayed together.