Furthermore, Indonesians have been familiar with the guitar, the boss of the instrument of rock’n’roll, ever since the Portuguese introduced it in the 16th century. And if you think Jimi Hendrix was the first rocker to play the guitar behind his back, check out the Indorock Godfather on YouTube. Andy Tielman had a five-octave vocal range. Many, originating from Ambon or North Sumatra, which continues to provide a disproportionate number of Indonesian popular singers, were gifted with fine natural voices. But the Indorockers, especially the Tielmans, were far from being copycat Elvis clones. In the above quote from Allan Williams, he sounds dismissive of the Indorockers, which is understandable considering he had access to a stable of bands in Liverpool with exciting new sounds which took the music a stage further on than Elvis. They were already popular musicians at the time of Indonesia’s independence, even performing for President Sukarno, but as anti-Dutch feeling spread in Indonesia throughout the 1950s, in 1957 they joined the thousands of refugees relocating to the Netherlands. The keynote Indorock band were The Tielman Brothers, whose leader, Andy Tielman, is known as the “Godfather of Indorock.” Andy and his five siblings were Indo-European, originating from Eastern Indonesia. Ironically, in Indonesia, rock’n’roll music was considered decadent by the Old Order regime, resulting in the notorious prison sentence handed out in 1965 to Koes Plus, the leading Indonesian Beatles-type band. And far from being blown away by the Liverpool bands, Indorock musicians and singers continued to enjoy European success well into the late sixties. Indorock bands went on to become star attractions in clubs and dancehalls in the Netherlands and Germany, including the US forces’ clubs, not so long after Sergeant Presley was driving a tank there. Stuck in the Dutch refugee camps, bored, they improvised instruments and drew on their own rich heritage of strong vocal harmonies and sophisticated rhythms, applying these to the new exciting sound of American rock’n’roll which was easily accessible on Radio Luxemburg and the American Forces Network radio. They were practitioners of what is still powerfully remembered, especially in continental Europe, as “Indorock.” The families of these young men from Ambon, Timor and Sumatra had been expatriated to the Netherlands as political fallout in the aftermath of the Indonesian Revolution.
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