André Emile Ghislain Brasseur (born ) is a Belgian keyboard player and

organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ (music), organ. An organist may play organ repertoire, solo organ works, play with an musical ensemble, ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumentalist, instrumental ...

. His most successful recording was "Early Bird" released in 1965.

Career

Brasseur was playing in bars when he was signed in 1964, and started releasing albums and singles in his own country Belgium. His first single was unsuccessful, but his second, the 1965 instrumental single "Early Bird" (named after the

Intelsat I Intelsat I (nicknamed Early Bird for the proverb "The early bird catches the worm") was the first commercial communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit, on April 6, 1965. It was built by the Space and Communications Group of ...

satellite launched the same year), reached No. 1 in Flemish chart, and it also reached the top 10 in Germany and Austria. The recording was his most successful single and it has sold over 6 million copies worldwide. He followed it with "Atlantide"/"Studio 17" and "Mad Train", released under the name André Brasseur & His Multisound Organ. Brasseur is best known in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

for his double

A-side The A-side and B-side are the two sides of vinyl records and cassettes, and the terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side of a single usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or ...

d single ''The Kid''/''Holiday'', which was released on the CBS label. Though it never reached the UK charts, ''The Kid'' became popular in the famous

Northern Soul Northern soul is a music and dance movement that emerged in Northern England and the Midlands in the early 1970s. It developed from the British Mod (subculture), mod scene, based on a particular style of African American music, Black American ...

venue The Twisted Wheel, based in

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

, and DJ

Noel Edmonds Noel Ernest Edmonds (born 22 December 1948) is an English businessman, and former television presenter, radio DJ, writer and producer. Edmonds first became known as a disc jockey on Radio Luxembourg before moving to BBC Radio 1 in the UK, pres ...

used ''Holiday'' as the theme tune to his Radio 1 programme in the 1970s. In the same period at Radio Veronica, a Dutch

pirate radio Pirate radio is a radio station that broadcasts without a valid license, whether an invalid license or no license at all. In some cases, radio stations are considered legal where the signal is transmitted, but illegal where the signals are rec ...

, DJ Lex Harding used ''The Kid'' as the opening sequence to his daily afternoon broadcast programme. A commercially unreleased studio 'take' of The Kid was used for track 2 of the BBC2 Trade Test Music Tape 'Le Retour De- Borsalino'http://www.testcardcircle.org.uk/TAPE3.HTML that was transmitted between 22nd of December 1975 and 1st of August 1977. His 1967 single ''Waiting For You'' was used as the signature tune to the 1970s

Yorkshire Television ITV Yorkshire, previously known as Yorkshire Television and commonly referred to as just YTV, is the British television service provided by ITV Broadcasting Limited for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV (TV network), ITV network. Until 19 ...

series '' Indoor League''.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Brasseur 1939 births Living people Belgian organists Belgian male organists 21st-century organists 21st-century Belgian male musicians