Between 19 seventeen consecutive Earring singles rocketed into the Dutch Top 10, while their international popularity increased, especially after their lengthy 1972 tour of Europe, supporting The Who. It marked the start of a decade of domestic and international glory. Back Home hit #1 in the Dutch charts and 'broke' Golden Earring in European countries such as Germany, Switzerland, Austria and France. After the melodic, often Beatle-esque sixties beat of The Golden Earrings and a brief phase of psychedelica and hippie rock in 19, the single Back Home marked the birth of Golden Earring's trademark heavy, riff-based brand of hard rock with catchy hooks. The arrival of drummer, Cesar Zuiderwijk, in 1970, completed the line-up that is still active today: Barry Hay (lead vocals/guitar/flute), George Kooymans (guitar/vocals), Cesar Zuiderwijk (drums) and Rinus Gerritsen (bass/harmonica/keyboards).ġ970 saw a dramatic shift in Golden Earring's musical style. Golden Earring's 19-minute album version, as well as the stand-alone 1969 single, Another 45 Miles, were the first Golden Earring recording to get some North American airplay. tours, their long, wild cover version of The Byrds' classic Eight Miles High impressed audiences and press alike. The band's international career modestly started to take off in 1969, the year of their psychedelic Eight Miles High album, their first haphazard tour of the United States and also the year in which the band name was slightly changed into The Golden Earring and finally (dropping the article within a year), Golden Earring. His successors were Sieb Warner (1969) and, in 1970, Cesar Zuiderwijk (ex- Livin' Blues), Golden Earring's definitive drummer. The band's drummer for much of the 1960s was Jaap Eggermont. He was replaced by Barry Hay (ex- The Haigs) in 1967. The band's lead singer during the early Golden Earrings years was Frans Krassenburg. One of the band's sixties singles was their first Dutch #1 hit: 1968's somewhat carnavalesque Dong-Dong-Diki-Digi-Dong, although that tune is now frowned upon by the band and generally regarded as inferior to other sixties Earrings gems, such as That Day (1966, the first Dutch pop single to have been recorded in the U.K., at London's Pye Studios), Sound Of The Screaming Day (1966) and the epic Just A Little Bit Of Peace In My Heart (1969). Several of their records were released internationally in Europe and even North America, although they failed to make an impact there. Under the Golden Earrings moniker the band eventually recorded four albums and had twelve hit singles in the Netherlands between 19, ten of which reached the Dutch Top 10. Their début single, 1965's Please Go, landed in the Dutch Top 10. The band now performed around The Hague and soon had a devoted local following, as well as a record deal with Polydor. In 1963, as the band found out that there already was a British band called The Tornados, they decided to change their name into The Golden Ear-rings (after a Peggy Lee song). The band's first line-up mainly played The Shadows and The Ventures covers, as well as other instrumental tunes, and played its first gigs at school parties. In 1961 George Kooymans (age 13) and his neighbour Rinus Gerritsen (age 15) formed The Tornado's in the Zuiderpark district of their home town of The Hague, The Netherlands. Golden Earring was always on tour, except in 2000 (their only sabbatical year) and 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The band's core line-up of four was unchanged from 1970 to 2021, although extra musicians had short stints in the band in the 1970s. hit in 1983).įormed in 1961, the band was active for over 60 years non-stop (56 years of studio output, starting in 1965), which made them the world's longest surviving rock band, formed a year before The Rolling Stones, until their tragic demise on 5 February 2021, when founding member George Kooymans revealed that he had been diagnosed with ALS.
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hit in 1974) and Twilight Zone (1982, a U.S. Outside of The Netherlands they are best known for their brace of North American hits, Radar Love (1973, a U.S. The best known and internationally most succesful rock band to come out of the Netherlands (The Hague, to be precise), they had 47 chart hits in their home country. Golden Earring was a Dutch rock band, active from 1961 to 2021.