BJ Baartmans

Guitarist, singer/songwriter, producer.

BJ Baartmans is a highly acclaimed musician from The Netherlands. He's born in 1965 in a small town in the southern east part of the country, Boxmeer, where owns and operates Studio Wild Verband, Boxmeer

A professional musician since he was in his late teens, BJ has done over 4000 gigs playing mainly his own original material or backing up singer songwriters from both sides of the Atlantic. He toured all over The Netherlands, the UK, Ireland, Germany, Belgium, France and Italy and even a little bit of the US with people like Iain Matthews, David Corley, Lynne Hanson, Cara Luft, Shannon Lyon, Amy Speace, Eugene Ruffolo, Terri Binion, Jenee Halstead, Rod Picott and many more..

Baartmans can be heard as a sessionplayer on countless (inter-)national recordings. As a producer he's been responsible for easily a 100 albums released between the mid 90s and now, most of them in the 'americana' genre, music fuelled by blues, jazz, country or folk, sometimes with a hard rockin' vibe too. He worked with acts like Jeff Finlin, Eric Devries, Plainsong, Israel Nash Gripka, Shannon Lyon, David Corley, Matthews Southern Comfort, Carter Sampson.

BJ's own artist catalogue, songs he brings as a singer songwriter, has often been labelled as 'americana' . He is a storyteller at heart, writes deep personal stories and sharp observations with a nice way of putting things into perspective and a good sense of humour.

The instrumental records that he also regularly puts out show a more jazzy, impressionistic approach. Since the late 90's there have been a good 15 albums released under his own name or under the bandnames BJ's Pawnshop or BJ's Wild Verband. Some in Dutch, some in English. BJ's also a member of Dutch top rootsrock collective Hidden Agenda Deluxe and the latest version of Matthews Southern Comfort, a band formed around legendary singer Iain Matthews.