N°101 LUCY LOES - MIN ZEEKAPITING

Let’s stay in Ostend, Belgium and pick another one of their world famous artists: Lucy Loes. Who? Lucy Loes! She’s world famous in Ostend and a few miles abroad. She’s that famous she has a statue standing before the fisherman’s stairs at the Fisherman’s Quai in Ostend. She was a performer of old Belgian fisherman’s songs such as ‘t Visscherslief’, ‘Min Zeekapiting’ and ‘Onk ‘soavonds nor min bedje goan’. Translated: The Fisherman’s Song, My Sea Captain and If I Go to Bed Late at Night. I did say was a performer since the Lucy died of cancer in 2009 at the age of 82.

She started to gain interest in old fisherman’s songs because her father was an emergency sea captain and when she was a little girl she heard all the great stories he used to tell her. Yet she never produced a single or an album before the age of fifty. At fifty she took over a pub at the Belgian coast and started her career in the back room for all who wanted to listen to her songs. She sings in Dutch but is better known for her songs in her local dialect. She also had a brother who died at a young age at sea fishing.

In 1970 she had the opportunity to produce an LP with nothing but her most famous fisherman’s songs. She later would produce 3 more cd’s with her best songs and one with ambi music. Although she never got famous outside her home town and surroundings she did achieved to reach national television in 2000 after her song ‘Min Zeekapiting’ was sung on television by Betty Owcziarek, a contestant in the Belgian Big Brother series.

I’ll slip the curtain a little bit aside so you can take a peek into the next song. Off course it’ll have to be linked with the sea and sailors so the next song is about a Viking.