Het Huus van de Taol has created a fifth season of the Drenthe-language podcast Praot Drents Met Mij in collaboration with RTV Drenthe.
In this podcast, director of the Huus van de Taol Renate Snoeijing talks to well-known and lesser-known Drenthe people about the role that the Drenthe language plays in their lives. Singer and songwriter Harmen Boels is a guest in this episode.
‘I am a glorified gruunte farmer’
Most people will know Harmen Boels from the industry, but he has also been active in the export of groats and fruit.
Boels used to be a shy boy and that is still true sometimes, but: ‘You teach yourself tricks, don’t you’.
Growing up on an arable farm
Boels grew up together with Zien on the arable farm of Mom and Dad. And that also means that they regularly help sparrows. In retrospect, Boels thinks it was a nice time, but there were days when he thought about it: ‘Then you’re at school in Emmen and your classmates all go to the Brasserie in the afternoon and we eat the beets in the afternoon.’ .
The Boels family was a musical family: Dad Boels always sang (and still sings) and Mom Boels played a banjo. But because the children never played on them, the two boys themselves were always strumming on them.
From sixth to fourth, Boels played the trumpet with Oring’s fanfare. Until the moment came when my classmates were sitting on the terrace of the Brasserie and Boels was marching past him. Then we quickly exchanged the trumpet for a guitar.
This year Boels is going on a trip to America with his girlfriend for three weeks. The schedule includes Nashville, Tennessee and New Orleans. ‘I personally really want to go to Nashville and my girlfriend really wants to go to Graceland. So that has to happen anyway.”
‘Veendrents is often a bit drier than Zanddrents’. And so Boel’s vision of Drents clashed to some extent with that of the other band members of Aosem: ‘Then Hilco came up with a piece of text and I just couldn’t get it out. That doesn’t suit me at all.’
Boels does not see humzölf as a fighter from Drenthe: ‘My texts are not about dolmens or something. I am not trying to save the language. I really do it because I just enjoy it.’
