Jan Akkerman
b. 24 December 1946, Amsterdam, Netherlands. When Akkerman surfaced in 1973 as Best Guitarist in a Melody Maker poll, it was the public zenith of a professional career that started in Amsterdam in 1958 as one of Johnny And The Cellar Rockers. Their drummer, Pierre Van Der Linden, later played with Akkerman in the Hunters - who owed much artistically to the Shadows - during the guitarist's five years of study at the city's Music Lyceum, from which he graduated with a catholic taste that embraced mainstream pop, Latin, medieval and the music of Frank Zappa, among leading preferences. With Van Der Linden, Bert Ruiter (bass) and Kaz Lux (vocals) Akkerman formed Brainbox, a hard rock outfit whose only album (featuring the single "Down Man") was issued on Parlophone Records in 1969. Owing to Akkerman's keen participation in rehearsals with the nascent Focus, Brainbox dismissed him. In 1971, after the release of the Focus album In And Out Of Focus, Akkerman asked Van Der Linden to join him in a new band, and having also recruited Thijs Van Leer and Cyril Havermans from Focus, they retained the latter name. Among the major factors in the band's success over the next few years were Akkerman's powers of improvisation on his trademark Les Paul guitar and his skill as an arranger. Furthermore, his solo albums were widely acclaimed, although the first, Profile, was simply an accumulation of tracks taped during the interval between Brainbox and Focus. Orchestrated by Columbia University professor of music George Flynn, Tabernakel was a more ambitious affair, featuring Akkerman's developing dexterity on the lute, and guest appearances by Tim Bogert and Carmine Appice.
Listen to Jan Akkerman
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Albums
- (2005) Tabernakel
Top Tracks
- House Of The King
- A Galliard By John Dowland
- A Galliard By Anthonie Holborne
- Britannia By John Dowland
- Javeh
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