Peter Koelewijn

Peter Cornelis Koelewijn was born in the city of Eindhoven on December 29th 1940, as the son of a fish-salesman and the last of 5 siblings. From an early age he was taken in byall kinds of music, but especially by the pop-music of the time. Artists like Guy Mitchell, Frankie Laine, Rosemary Clooney, Johnny Ray, and, from Holland, the Chico´s and the Kilima Hawaiins. In 1953 he was given his first guitar and immediately began writing songs. Mostly cowboy songs at first but that would soon change.

A few years later Peter felt that he had been struck by lightening when he heard “Long tall Sally” by Little Richard. He knew right there and then that rock & roll was the road for him. That idea only got stronger after hearing records by Elvis, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Ritchie Valens but most of all Chuck Berry. But how did he get to hear all those people ? In that time they were not released in Holland and the Dutch radio stations still considered rock & roll as the devils music. The answer is that thousands of American G.I.´s, stationed in Germany, crossed the border each weekend into Eindhoven. And they brought with them all the new releases to play on the local juke-boxes. As a teenager Peter spent hours next to those juke-boxes. And on Saturday morning he listened to the hit-chart on the American Forces Network (A.F.N.). A few years later, still at school, Peter formed his first band with three school pals: Harry van Hoof on piano, Charles Jansen on guitar and Peter van der Voort on drums. Later Claus Buchholz (saxophone) joined the group. After Charles came up with the name The rockets, the name of the band was born. For the first few years, still at school, the group played on every school-party in the city. After graduation, Arnold Bagen became the second sax-player. The boys were ready to breach out to the rest of the country. After graduating from school (HBS = higher education) Peter started as an apprentice journalist at the Eindhovens Dagblad (the local paper) and finished his training in 2 years.