Dries Holten, also known as Andres, has passed away at the age of 84. Dries represented The Netherlands at the 1972 Eurovision Song Contest, finishing in 4th place with 106 points.
The singer and lyricist passed away on 15th April after losing his fight against cancer, it has been announced. His family waited until after his cremation to announce the news publicly.
Life and career
Dries Holten was born on 30th January 1936 in Cimahi, Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). During his career as a singer-songwriter, Dries performed alongside many artists.
In 1972, he took part in the Eurovision Song Contest alongside Sandra Reemer. The duo – known as Sandra & Andres – performed “Als het om de liefde gaat”, which was co-written by Dries. They finished 4th at the contest, held in Edinburgh. The duo finished behind Luxembourg, the United Kingdom and Germany who made up the top 3. They scored 106 points with their highest score – of 9 points – coming from Spain.
In 1975, he formed the duo, Rosy & Andres, with Indonesian singer Rosy Pereira. Together, they released the single “Sausillito”. It peaked at number 7 in the Dutch charts. Dries co-wrote the song, which spent four weeks in the chart, alongside Marshal Manengkei. Their later single, “My Love”, reached number 3 on the Dutch charts (behind Johnny Wakelin & ABBA) and number 5 on the Swiss charts. The song was covered by Belgian duo, Tony Servi & Corina, in 1993.
The duo travelled to Romania in June 1977 to perform their hit “Sausilito” with singers Therese Steinmetz & Conny Vink and violin duo Sem Vijveen & Benny Behr. They performed the song in Romanian with the title, “Bucaresti”.
In 1980, Dries formed his final duo with Ria Schildmeyer – also known as Debbie. Dries had previously wrote a number of tracks for Ria, including “Angelino”.
The thoughts of the entire team at ESCXTRA are with Dries Holten’s friends and family in these difficult times.
