This is the story of how i obtained the USA Record Award for GOLDEN EARRING - MOONTAN.

I spent a lot of time backstage and in hotels during the North Sea Jazz Festival in The Hague from the early 90's right untill NSJ was sold to Mojo and moved to Rotterdam.

During this time i made a lot of contacts and one of the contacts i made gave me this record award. Why you might ask?  Well this gentleman worked for Polydor, the record company that had Golden Earring under contract. In those days record companies waited for bands to come to their country to hand over their record awards and get some good pictures for publicity purposes. Golden Earring simply hadn't been back to the States....

Since this gentleman was dutch and travelled from country to country working for Polydor he was asked if he could give the award to the band. Like i said i met him several times at NSJ and we got to know each other quite well. So when he asked me if i liked to get this award since he was getting tired of dragging it around with him, i naturally said yes.

In 1997 i made an appointment with drummer CESAR ZUIDERWIJK who owns a drumschool in The Hague. He signed a lot of items for me and i showed him the award. He looked at it, picked up his phone and called the band's singer BARRY HAY. They asked me what i wanted for the award but i declined. I also forgot to ask Cesar to sign the award....:(

Then in 2014 i had the first musician sign the album. Studio musician and saxophonist BERTUS BORGERS signed the album at the Record Collector fair in Utrecht.

On june 4th 2022 i was able to go backstage @ the Kaderock festival in The Hague. CESAR ZUIDERWIJK (drums), RINUS GERRITSEN (bass) and session musician ROBERT-JAN STIPS (keyboards) all signed the award for me.

Again Cesar asked me how much i wanted for the award and again i told him that it's not for sale... :)