Frank Vander Linden
Belgian national Radio Producer, Ronald Verhaegen nominated Frank, as “a great Belgian artist whom, I feel, comes close to the spirit of Bert Jansch”. From a background in journalism, since the nineties Frank has made albums with his Flemish Rock Band De Mens, and also some solo acoustic work. He is also a regular panel member in the television quiz show Nonkel pop on a channel of the Belgian public broadcaster VRT. And he played himself in the film Film 1 by Willem Wallyn.
Strolling Down The Highway
Bert’s iconic song performed by Frank vander Linden for Bert Jansch
Frank counts Bert Jansch as one of his biggest influences on his guitar work and songwriting. As a starting guitar player, in his teens, he practiced for hours and hours on his folk guitar skills, playing songs by Bert. He considers the album ‘Bert Jansch’ from 1965 one of his all-time favorite albums. (he wrote an article on its 50th anniversary for a Belgian magazine). He doesn’t usually sing in English, but felt compelled to honour Bert with his own, untranslated take on ‘Strolling Down The Highway’.
Ronald, who nominated vander Linden, says: “Frank doesn’t dare nominate himself (bad karma ;-)) but I am more than willing to do so because I feel the result will be great. (On 11 February 2019, we broadcast the songs played by Frank and Neeka. Read our online article
Alongside his thirteen albums with De Mens, he has released two highly acclaimed solo albums, focusing more on his acoustic guitar playing and songs using folk/blues-stylings.