Biografie van Hewdie

A handful of quotes from reviews, radio broadcasts and listener feedback in the wake of the release of Hewdie's new album "Outsider Blues":

-"pure and artless, great stuff"
-"blessed with a pleasant, relaxed sounding singing voice, Hewdie turns minimalism into art"
-"a surprisingly strong album"
-"sounds like Leadbelly mixed with Skip Spence"
-"out of the blue comes this wayward and surprising album"
-"beautiful, slightly disruptive gems"
-"using minimal means Hewdie achieves a maximum of expressiveness"

Hewdie is a singer-songwriter from the Netherlands. He was born as Peet Didderiëns in the southernmost province of Limburg, near the town of Roermond. Interested in literature and music from a young age and looking for a way to express himself he picked up the guitar and started writing songs in his late teens.

His first serious band was a psychedelic garagerock outfit called Digestives. Despite having a unique sound and strong material they never broke out of the regional bar and club circuit. Peet moved to mellower musical pastures in the mid nineties, playing folky indie and roots music in a succession of local bands. The Restless Hearts, Society Dog Show and Feed The Cynics disbanded with a handful of cassette-only releases to their names.
In collaboration with Cynics vocalist and lyricist Bas Veldhuizen, Peet wrote and recorded a lo-fi album that mixed traditional song structures with pre-digital tape cut-ups and "found sounds". The album never registered on the mainstream music radar but it is regarded as a precursor to current "cut and paste" sample based songwriters.

Peet also wrote music for documentary and corporate films. As a freelance sound recordist he worked on several independent documentary film projects and has traveled extensively in Europe and South-East Asia.

Using the alias Buksjek, Peet released the single "Gister Zoog Ich Charley Patton" in his native, Limburg dialect.

Attempts to start a band in 2001 failed, but the name "Hewdie" stuck and he began to use it for his solo work as a singer-songwriter.
Hewdie's first single "Cold Eyes" was released on Rauh Records in 2004, followed by a 3-song e.p. later that year.

These early releases were influenced by the electric music of his previous bands, but Peet soon developed a more personal and stripped down style of songwriting.
"Bye Bye Melancholy Baby", a mini album of wistful acoustic songs about heartbreak and estrangement, is a prime example of his artless, evocative style. It was released in 2006 with little fanfare, but it has since found favor with a growing group of fans.

Hewdie is influenced by blues, folk and jazz. Some of Peet's favorite artistst are Elmore James, Howlin' Wolf, Gillian Welch and a host of lesser known American folk and blues artists from the 1920's to the present day.
He also enjoys sixties west coast music like Moby Grape, Jefferson Airplane and Buffalo Springfield and treasures his collection of vinyl by 1980's Australian garage and underground groups like Radio Birdman, New Christs and Died Pretty.

A move from a tiny apartment in the seedier part of Roermond's east side to a more spacious old house in a nearby village enabled him to concentrate on his writing undisturbed by the hustle and bustle of the city.

The new Hewdie album is called "Outsider Blues". It marks a change to a more narrative style of writing. It contains Hewdie's most varied collection of songs to date and has been received very well by critics and listeners alike.

"Outsider Blues" is out now on Rauh Records.

www.rauhrecords.nl

info@rauhrecords.nl