Vandaag exact een halve eeuw geleden kocht ik de LP “Midnight Rainbows”, Joe South’ zwanenzang wat betreft zijn muzikale nalatenschap. Terwijl veel van mijn landgenoten oudejaarsdag associëren met oliebollen, carbidschieten en vuurpijlen klinkt als het even kan de muziek van de genoemde LP door mijn luidsprekers.

Mijn eerdere publicatie👈 over Joe South lokte in de loop der tijd zelfs een paar reacties uit van fans uit de Verenigde Staten, met name vanwege de link naar een door mij getaped nooit officieel verschenen opname van het nummer Suite for Mary.

In juni van dit jaar schreef Roberto Milian mij in een reactie bij “Luisteren naar Nachtegalen”:

Hello, I’m sorry to bother but I wanted to leave a comment asking about your post about Joe South. I wanted to ask specifically about the appearance he had on Jan Donker’s show in the 80s and if you ever came across your recording of the remainder of the songs played on said show or the Interview? I found your post with “Suite for Mary” and I had sent it to a friend who is in contact with Joe’s relatives and it seemed his family does not have these songs in their archive and they would love to hear these and have them archived.

Ik mailde hem terug om daartoe contact op te nemen met Jan Donkers.

Begin deze maand ontving ik een mail waarin hij schreef:

Dear Cor,
After you pointed me into the direction of Jan Donkers, I soon after sent him an email and over the next months Jan and I talked about the possibility of him still having these tapes and making digital copies.
In the time since contacting you about those songs and interview, I randomly crossed paths with Joe’s niece Sheila South and became great friends and have learned alot from her in terms of her families history.
I learned that after Joe passed on, his son practically took none of joe’s belongings and had an estate sale, with Joe’s late caretaker/friend and old neighbor getting to keep his old music and such, so the family themselves do not have anything.

After Jan got to learn more about the situation, he told me he’d double his efforts and look for said tapes and provide copies and now thanks to his hard work, Joe’s niece along with his bass player John Mulkey and his daughter can listen to and enjoy these recordings again. I wanted to send this email to also thank you aswell for making this happen, without you sharing Jan’s email I don’t think I would’ve been able to find a way to contact him, or find these songs for Joe’s family. 
It is quite possible that Jan’s are the only raw copies of the songs out there. Here👈 is a link to the songs on youtube if you’d like to give them a listen,
All the best,
Roberto Milian 

Vanzelfsprekend heb ik Roberto bedankt dat hij me zo liet weten dat ik met mijn blogbericht uiteindelijk ook een schakeltje leverde in het boven water brengen van een stukje muziekgeschiedenis.