De Dekker Band

“De Dekker Band” from Volendam, the Netherlands, was founded around 1979/’80 as an initiative from Cor Veerman/Cor Dekker (organ and accordion) and Klaas Dekker (Veerman) (trumpet and vocals), with two other brothers [a=Bep Veerman] (tenorsax) and Andre Veerman (bassguitar). Their family nickname in Volendam is ‘Dekker’. A fifth brother Jack Veerman (drums) at that time was drummer of BZN and didn’t have much time for this initiative, although their one and only single was played by Jack.

Other musicians from the very beginning are Jaap Sombroek (drums, nickname Lood), [a=Jaap Bond] (guitar, nickname Drum) and Jack Veerman (altosax and vocals, nickname Jozef). The latter previously played with [a=Fools (2)], but is not a brother of the others and therefore shares a different nickname. Jaap Bond left the band quite early and was replaced by Theo van Scherpenseel a.k.a. Specs Hildebrand, who previously played with Jen Rog.

The band produced the first funfair (kermisplaat) record of Volendam, something that grew into a Volendam music tradition in the years that followed. “Volendammer Volkslied” was first released on cassette and later on vinyl single. It became a classic in the region, with a number 2 position in the Volendammer Top 1000.

“Volendammer Volkslied” appeared to be an uncredited cover version of "Het Zeilbergs Volkslied", a national anthem that [a=Jan van Ooij] wrote at the beginning of the sixties for his birthplace Zeilberg, a hamlet in the municipality of Deurne in the east of Noord-Brabant. It was also covered in 1984 by/as [m3685482]. The copyrights were not pre-arranged with Van Ooij, and he wasn’t mentioned on the release. Van Ooij only found out about this when he saw “De Dekker Band” performing their version at the famous Dutch TV program “Op Volle Toeren”.