Robbie van Leeuwen

Dutch singer, guitarist and songwriter Robbie van Leeuwen was born on October 29, 1944. In 1967 he formed the rock group Shocking Blue; he had previously been a member of the well-known Dutch rock band The Motions. Shocking Blue scored a massive international smash with "Venus" in 1970, which was written by van Leeuwen and boasts an infectiously bouncy guitar riff by him as well. Shocking Blue went on to enjoy a steady succession of hit songs in their native Holland, which included "Mighty Joe," "Never Marry a Railroad Man," "Hello Darkness," "Shocking You," "Inkpot," "Long Lonesome Road" and "Blossom Lady", all of written by Robbie. Exhausted by extensive touring and the pressures of being the sole songwriter for the band, van Leeuwen left Shocking Blue in 1973. He returned to the Dutch music scene in the mid-'70s with the folk-jazz group Galaxy Lin. He also produced such solo singles as "Too Young" and "Loving You" for former Shocking Blue lead singer Mariska Veres. He had a few hit songs with the studio outfit Mistral, which broke up in the early 1980s. In 1979 van Leeuwen made an unsuccessful attempt to reunite Shocking Blue and performed with them at two memorable "back to the '60s" concert festivals in late 1984. In 1983 he moved from The Hague in the Netherlands to Luxembourg (he moved back to Holland in 1996). In 1994 he produced the CD single "Body and Soul" for a new incarnation of Shocking Blue fronted by Mariska Veres.