Anneke Grönloh

Louise Johanna (Anneke) Grönloh (born Tondano, Netherlands East Indies, 7 June 1942) is a Dutch singer. She had a successful career starting in 1959 that lasted throughout the 1960s, and scored a hit with "Brandend Zand", one of the best-selling Dutch songs of all time.

Grönloh was born in Tondano, North Celebes, Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia), and spent her early years in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies in a Japanese concentration camp. Her father, an officer in the KNIL, had been interned before her birth.

After the war the family moved to the Netherlands, and Grönloh grew up in Eindhoven. At the Gemeentelijk Lyceum (Municipal College) she met and played with Peter Koelewijn and his band Peter en zijn Rockets at parties. In 1959 her career took off after she won a talent show. On 31 August 1964 she married Wim-Jaap van der Laan, a DJ for Dutch radio station Radio Veronica, and in 1965 began singing in the Sleeswijk Revue. Throughout the 1960s she scored hits, especially with "Brandend Zand" (English: "Burning sand"). At the height of her fame, in 1964, Grönloh took part in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Jij bent mijn leven" (English: "You are my life"), which ended with a joint tenth place with the Belgian entry, and by the end of the 1960s she had begun an international singing career.

Besides popular music, Grönloh also performed the kroncong genre, singing songs such as "Bengawan Solo", "Boeroeng Kakatua", and "Nina bobo", and also sings jazz, which she claims is her favorite genre.

In 2000, Grönloh was named "Singer of the Century" because of the record-breaking sales of "Brandend Zand". In the same year she was also a participant on the television program Big Brother VIPS. In 2006 she released Anneke and Friends, a DVD of her theater tours. Later that year she was part of the theater tour "Purple 100", replacing Corry Brokken who could not perform due to illness.

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