Jan Janssen

About me:

I grew up with music of Otis Redding, Grand Funk Railroad, Wishbone Ash, Black Sabbath, The Free, Buffalo Springfield, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. When I was fourteen I worked as a DJ in a local discotheque called Walhalla. It was the winter of 1972 as this house of “Real People, Real Instruments and Real Music” burned down to the ground. This musical nightmare happened in place called Millingen aan de Rijn in the Netherlands. That's why I like to dedicate the Real Roots Café website in memory to the most futuristic roots-rock temple of the late sixties begin seventies called Walhalla.

After that I did learn more about more popular music of bands like Stealers Wheel, Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers, Crosby Stills Nash & Young and The Eagles. But the roots of the best American Roots Music came in those days from The Ozark Mountain Daredevils. I always stayed true to the music of the band. In those days, I entertained the youth movement in our area and myself with some real music. I enjoyed all true believers, mostly in the weekends, about the latest discoveries and developments in music. I always stayed true to the music that I did loved then and that I love now.

In 1994 I did get my first Internet connection. With my super fast 14 K4 modem, connection music world was on my feet, new opportunities to discover music and to broaden my music knowledge. At that time in our country, the Roots Music scene was doing fine. It didn’t matter if it was country, blues, world, reggae or singer songwriter music, in general the interest in Roots music was growing fast.

Via a live performance that Jimmy LaFave gave in O42 in Nijmegen back in 1995, I landed at the Munich Records Anniversary Festival, in 1996. It where LaFave and his friends Wyckham Porteous, Michael Fracasso, Abra Moore en Mark Shumate who introduced me in world that they call now Americana. I noticed, with a lot of pleasure that I was not standing alone with my love for "Real People, Real Instruments and Real Music". The slightly stolen slogan, after visiting the Munich Records Festival, was for me the moment to start the a Roots music website. I in fact picked up where I stopped in those nostalgic days. I started the website “JJ’s Alternative Music Corner”. I still remember my first interview with Neal Casal, in catacomb of Paradiso, Amsterdam, meeting my independent hero’s like Michael "Supe'Granda, David Munyon, Joseph Parsons, Shane Alexander, Reto Burrell, Joe Purdy and many more.

After I finished my study, in 1997, I started to work, as a volunteer, at the local radio station WFM 107.1 located in our hometown. I actually started the Real Roots Café radio show and website in 1998. In 2000 we started to experiment with interactive radio on the Internet. I started broadcasting the Real Roots Café radio show via Live365.com.

2006 it was al about the TEN YEARS Real Roots Café anniversary party on the world wide web. June 4th 2006 at Cultureel Podium Roepaen in Ottersum, Holland we had two live stages. One acoustic indoor stage in the beautiful just renovated Chapel and one big outdoor stage. We had only 400 tickets, because we wanted to guarantee that all our visitors and artists really could enjoy the festival. With a small budget we created something very special.

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10 years Real Roots Café Party 2006

It’s actualy a never-ending story. Systematically The Real Roots Café is walking the long road, knowing we are rumble in margins. Nevertheless, wel ove the challenge to support all those fabulous musicians. who almost never get the chance to promote their music on settled national radio stations and magazines. We cherish the sound that average listeners never get the chance to explore or hear.

Please surf to www.realrootscafe.com to find out more.

Contact:
Real Roots Café
Lincolnstraat 2
6566 CT Millingen aan de Rijn
The Netherlands
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