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Sunday 14 February 2010

Belgian Weekend 2

Some Belgian Americana for you today. I am not sure whether there is enough of it to qualify as its own genre, but if there is then the man known simply as Derek must be one of its leading exponents. I make this deduction on the grounds that he had two different albums in the sale racks in the music shop in Brussels Midi station.

After much umming and ahhing I opted for his 2003 album, "Night Nurse", on which he is backed by such luminaries as Bruno Deneckere (guitar and mandolin) and Marcus Weymaere (drums). A backing band made up solely of other musical Dereks would have been even more enticing. Imagine the likes of Derek Smalls of Spinal Tap on bass, Derek Bell of The Chieftains (and his legendary solo album "Derek Bell Plays With Himself") on harp, and Derek Guyler on washboard all playing together. But the fact that two of them are dead and the other a fictional character probably rules this out.

Anyway, back to Belgian Derek. The album is a lot better than I had realistically expected. Here are a couple of fairly representative selections:

"I Drown In Our Bed" - Derek

"Silence Tells It All" - Derek

I haven't been able to find a clip of Derek Guyler on his washboard, but as a compensation here is another famous Derek from the 1970s exploring his cultural boundaries:

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