Bluesy Bassman © JH2007

Jan Halders was born in a small village in the south of The Netherlands close to the Dutch-German border in 1949. Together with his father Pierre with his roots in the place Vaals, his German mother Caroline from Aachen and his 5 year older sister Margriet, they lived as a happy family. For some years they have lived in the place Venlo where Jan's father had to work as a militair in the Dutch Army.
At his age of four the family moved to Maastricht in the south of Holland. At home his dad often played harmonica's, while mother Caroline loved singing during her work and Jan's older sister Margriet played piano in those early years.
Music took an important place with the family of Halders.
During Jan's period of grammarschool in the Fifties, rock & roll and bluesmusic became popular in Europe.
From that time on music became his passion !
On his ninth birthday he got a Hofner acoustic guitar and started lessons soon. By working on notes, chords and bars he studied the early rock & roll songs and bluesrifs.

The first Highschool Band 1964 "THE LONGLEGS"

With his best friend Peter van Drumpt he spent many hours by practising and singing music songs. During highschool Jan started to play walking basslics on Hagstrom and Welson bassguitars. In 1965 he started his first teenagerband THE LONGLEGS : Toon Stuiver (vocals), Hennie Delnoy (drums), Jan Bos (guitar), Jan Halders (bassguitar) and Minggus (Little Davy) Matulessy (guitar and vocal). MINGGUS MATULESSI died october 2006 at the age of 57. He became a wellknown and respectable hawaiian-gitaar player of AROMBAY (Award HMCS 2005).

In 1966 the coverband THE BLUE STRANGERS with Peter Kramer (vocal), Frans Teunisz (drums), Jan Meys (guitar), Charles van de Brink (guitar) asked Jan as the new bassplayer.
A busy period of covering popular pop and rocksongs started. The musicscene of Maastricht was changed and became more and more exciting. Local musicians came together and formed bands with higher musical levels. From that time on Jan played with different musicians.

THE BLUE STRANGERS (1966 ccoverband) : Peter Kramer (vocal), Frans Teunisz (drums. Jan Meys (guitar), Charles van de Brink (guitar) and Jan on bass.

The local band ANNO'66 invited him to play lead guitar in 1968. At the late sixties he played on the wonderful Fender Telecaster, Stratocasters, Fender tube amps and Gibson Les Paul Custom.This Bluesrock period has influenced his playing until now. The meantime wellknown producer Erwin Musper was the singer of Anno'66 for a while. Anno'66 were : Hub Pletzers (vocal), Don Dauphin (drums), Fiet Pletzers (bassguitar), Frans Janssen (tenorsax.) and Jan (guitar).

After graduating for his masterdegree in 1972 as a schoolteacher, Jan started studying social science. With his wife Patricia they lived in the place Margraten where they grounded a family in the seventies. Working fulltime as a pedagogue with behaviour disordered young ones, studying, becoming dad of two daughters Lavinia and Dominique and a son named Gaston, all got together with Jan's never ending passion playing music with friends.

The heavy Seventies Flowerpower & Hippie Period Jan & Patricia 1971

From 1983 together with other musicians he organised several revival festivals with "local heroes" and former bands of the seventies. From then on ANNO'66 got together again and played until 1994 with different line-ups (Jos Candel, Jean Ramakers as ex-Chaplin Band and Ravage members, René Smith and Don Dauphin).

The more heavy Bluesrock period started together with the guitarplayers René Smith, John Aldenhoven, singers/bluesharpplayers Theo Kluyt and Harrie Versluys.

In the meantime in 1993 Jan grounded a rocking bluestrio called CROSSROAD with Charles Dejong (drums) and the guitarplayer/singer/composer Joop Pieters. Driving his Corvette Stingray Joop got the nickname JP Stingray by Jan. A mix of ZZ-Top, SR.Vaughan, R.Gallaghar and own songs were on the setlist.Together they had a great time for some years.

CROSSROAD finished in 1998.

At a later period ANNO'66 became THE BLUESDOCTORS. Many festivals and live gigs were done. For a short time the Bluesdoctors had René Smith as well as JP Stingray on guitars and Igor Erin on piano. Together they performed a heavy bluessound. The Bluesdoctors recorded the CD "Bluesy Feelings".

Texas Texas Two Shoes (1998)

With the American/Texan singer Phil "Two Shoes" Oliphant, Simon Bullock from the UK (harp), Ed Soleil (drums), Marnix Valke (guitar) and Jan Halders on bass an international swingblues band grew together in 1998. By jamming in Jan's homestudio TEXAS TWO SHOES was born.Texas Two Shoes Bluesband recorded two live CD's and got the award "Best Bluesband of Limburg-NL of 1999". On the wellknown bluesrock festival Tegelen, organised by Bureau Pinkpop, they were on stage with Walter Trout. In the second period of this band Theo Kluyt of the Bourbon Bluesband became the bluesharpplayer. Later on Theo and Marnix left the band and Fred Lebens (harpplayer) of the Wicked Willy Bluesgroup and "Guitar Roy" van der Putten (leadguitar) of Texan Tail became the new members.During that period Texas Two Shoes had the sound where Phil always was looking for. Time for Real Blues started.

Texas Two Shoes available CD's : "Roots of Blues" (1999) - "It's a Bluesparty " (1999) - "Springfestival" (1999) - "Live at the Maasband" (2000) - "Live at Theo's Gijsbrecht" (2002).

Phil Oliphant & Texas Two Shoes 2003

March 2003 Phil Oliphant had to leave to the USA with hif wife Anne and the little son Xavier.

In the summer of 2000 the rhythm section Ed Soleil and Jan Halders formed the band THE MOMENT together with the wellknown Dutch "Rockabilly Kid" René SHUMAN. They performed Rock & Roll shows in Holland for a year.

After march 2003 Texas Two Shoes changed and got a new line up by : René Smith (ex. Anno'66 & The Bluesdoctors) became the guitarplayer together with DonDauphin on drums (ex. Anno'66 & The Bluesdoctors) and the new singer was found by harpplayer Fred Lebens of the Wicked Willy Bluesgroup. The band changed the name in the beginning of 2004 into THE BLUESDOCTORS and is going on with a new mix of The Bluesdoctors : Swingblues & Bluesrock

Jan had his own homestudio, PA Rental Systems (Electro Voice & Community sets) and started the company AIM MUSIC NL. After many years of experience with music (bookings and promotions, recording and live mixing of international Blues & Jazz artists (Blues'n Trouble, Dave Hole, Omar & The Howlers, Michael Katon, Bobby Mack, Rob Tognoni, Magic Frankie, Hans Dulfer, Kaz Lux ……)

There are still nice gigs and a lot of work and business to do !

AIM MUSIC NL "All-in Music!" (Musicagency, Recordings, PA-Rental & Stage Audio ) started in 2000. This midlife Bluesrocker will be swinging on stage in 2004 again with the new Bluesdoctors

TRACE ELLIOT AH300 AMP & TRACE 2x15" & TRACE 4x10"

a passion that will never end ...