Ria Valk (NL)

About

Ria Valk from Eindhoven is one of those Dutch entertainers who managed to be genuinely funny and genuinely catchy at the same time. She built her name on cheerful and comic songs, kicking things off in the late 1950s with rock and roll before scoring a hit in 1961 with Hou je echt nog van mij, Rocking Billy?, a translation of a Swedish song originally written by future ABBA manager Stig Anderson. A run of comic hits followed through the late sixties and into the seventies, when she leaned into carnival music and became something of a national institution for jolly, singalong fun. Her career stretched well beyond just recording. She performed internationally alongside acts like Rex Gildo and Udo Jürgens in Prague and Bratislava, and appeared on Czechoslovak television with her own single and EP on the Supraphon label. Dutch TV audiences knew her best from the comedy series Zeg 'ns Aaa, where she played Annie Kalkman through most of the late eighties and into the early nineties. She also recorded more tender material with Greek composer Nikos Ignatiadis, including a heartfelt song about losing her husband. Since the mid 1990s she has turned much of her attention to figurative painting.