Netherlands - The North

 Heading north but still in the province of North Holland we arrive in Hoorn where my Facebook friend Martijn lives, who has recommended the next act.  Now I had planned to go to Hoorn once on a bicycle on a tour around the Netherlands, but when we got to the beginning of the 30 km long Houtribdijk connecting Lelystad with Enkhuizen a snow storm ensued.  As we didn't fancy cycling on an exposed dike into a blizzard we were stuck in Lelystad, quite possibly the worst place on earth to be stuck in as it is a city built on reclaimed land by planners who were clearly on acid.  Anyway, so I never got to visit Hoorn, which by all accounts is quite a pretty town.

So Hoorn is where bluegrass band The Oldtime Stringband hail from.  Here's a song from their 2019 album Pretty Little Horses called Cluck Old Hen:

 

Next we are crossing the Afsluitdijk into Friesland, where they have their own language.  Friesland or Frisia (yes, where the Frisian cows come from) is a distinct region along the North Sea coast stretching from the northern part of the Netherlands via the northwestern part of Germany into the southwestern part of Denmark.  There are 3 sub-regions all with their distinct dialects of the Frisian language, West, East and North Friesland. 

From the small town of Oudkerk (Aldsjerk in Frisian) hails Ernst Langhout.  He had a long and chequered musical career, starting in various bands playing Scottish and Irish folk followed by New Wave.  In the 1990's he went solo and from 1996 he began singing in his native Frisian language, although oddly mostly translations of Bob Dylan songs rather than digging into his own traditional roots.  Here's a Frisian version of the Beatles' Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds called Lutske Laket:

It seems to be a bit of a thing to translate popular pop songs into Frisian as Veenwouden-born (Feanwâlden in Frisian) Elske DeWall shows.  She sang a Frisian translation of Leonard Cohen's song Dance Me to the end of Love called Dunsje My de Leafde Ut, which appeared on a 2008 album Cohen in het Fries:

 

Moving on to Groningen folk group Törf is altogether more rooted in traditional music of the region, basing their songs on poets from their city.  They have been going since 1975, but their music is rather tricky to get hold of outside the Netherlands.  Here's a song of theirs called De Monden:

Also based in Groningen are Celtic folk band Rapalje.  Whilst mostly playing Irish and Scottish folk here's a song in Dutch originally written in French by Jacques Brel called Stad Amsterdam, which features on their 2010 album Rakish Paddies:

That's it from the north of the Netherlands.  Next we are going to finish off our tour of the country in the south-east.  As usual you can follow my virtual travels on my tripline map.