TIM VISTERIN

Singer who had a surprising hit in 1970 with the children's song "De Vogel".

Tim Visterin was born in Antwerp on November 13, 1940. He was destined to become an accountant, but his musical ambitions decided things differently later in his life.
He started out by playing along with the band The Jokers for a short while, and later on became part of the beatband "Roland et les Bémols" a little bit later. Since his ambitions were to become a Flemish singer, he followed the advice that was given to him by Toon Hermans, the legendary dutch conférencier and singer, and went to study at the "kleinkunstacademie" in Amsterdam.

Initially he threw himself on the cabaret-genre (with the group "Sjanbaret"), but his breakthrough came in 1970 with the children's song : a translation of the song "Dites-Moi, Monsieur" of the French singer Jean-Claude Darnal as "De Vogel". With the voices of the Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-boys-choir from Mechelen, this shuffling sp,g got sold more than 100.000 times that year in Flanders & Holland (a harbinger of the Samson- & Plop sales figures in years the come?).

After a number of shows for the little people (including little man Jean Blaute in the backing) Tim Visterin diverted his attention to the business-side of music. He did productions for a number of Flemish artists, and became a song-publicist (local representation of the catalogues of Mud, Sweet, Bee Gees, Beatles ...). At the end of the seventies, he moved to the United States.

In 1991 he came back to Flanders and started working for bureau's like Centropa (Guy Beyers) and the team behind the light-classical Helmut Lotti. Still, his "De Vogel" keeps on emerging on a regular basis in all kinds of tv and radio-shows. For instance, he got to sing the song on VTM in prime time's "de zomer van", and a cover of the song was done by Danny Wuyts (one of the piano-players of the VRT-gameshow "de Notenclub") in 1999.

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Albums :
- Tim Visterin (Vogue, 1969)
- De Vogel (Vogue, 1971)
- Tim in het circus / Tim in het verkeer (Eufoda, 1974)
Singles :
- De Vogel / Buffalo Bill (Vogue, 1970)
- Suikernonkel (1971)
- Robin Hood (1971)
- Heertje (1972)
- Knikkers (1972)
- Keizer Karel (1973)
- Alphonso's voddenkar (1973)
- Zeg lala (1974)

Websites :
- none found