Dec 14

Mariska Veres

MARISKA VERES
 
 
Mariska Veres  (1 October 1947 – 2 December 2006) was a Dutch singer who was best known as the lead singer of the rock group Shocking Blue.  Her appearance, almost as notably as her eccentric and accented vocals, was striking, featuring kohl cosmetic-lined eyes, high cheekbones, and long jet black hair.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
I spent a good part of last month’s post extolling Shocking Blue and managed to do so without ever mentioning Mariska Veres, the lead singer on “Venus” and nearly all of their songs.  Few rock bands had female lead singers in those days, though there were a few, notably Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane.  Another Dutch band of the same time period, Earth and Fire also had a fine female lead singer, Jerney Kaagman. 
 
Like the rest of the band, Mariska Veres was born in the Netherlands, though her father was a Hungarian Romani (gypsy) violinist.  Their debut album, Beat with Us (also named Shocking Blue in some countries) was released in 1968 before Mariska Veres joined the group.  
 
 (September 2012)
 
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Shocking Blue frontman Robbie van Leeuwen has been quoted as saying that he doesn’t know how to write songs in the Dutch language.  Originally, vocalist Mariska Veres could not speak English and was singing phonetically; this was the reason for her occasional stumble over the lyrics, such as the opening line of their 1970 hit song “Venus”:  “God-ness on a mountaintop . . .”. 

 

(April 2013)

 

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Unbeknownst to most of us, some bands stayed together for decades:  Status Quo is known in America only for their 1967 psychedelic hit “Pictures of Matchstick Men”; but over the course of their career, they have released 60 songs that charted in the U.K. (the most recent in 2010) – more than any other rock group – and 23 of these were Top 10 hits.  One of my long-time favorites, the Dutch band Shocking Blue released a huge hit in 1970, “Venus”.  Featuring striking lead singer Mariska Veres (though she was not an original member), the band released 25 singles and 11 albums, though I had to go to Europe to find their albums. 

 

(April 2014)

 

Last edited: March 22, 2021