The singer once knew loss, pain and confinement: “once they locked me in a chain.” Now they can see the sun at daybreak and smell the new-born hay. The song offers a metaphor of being like a white bird that flies over mountains and soars free. More doves are featured on the inside of the album and on the back side of the album jacket. On the cover of the album is the band with Bouwens holding a white dove in his hand. In 1976, the George Baker Selection was topping the charts in Vancouver with “Paloma Blanca”. Most of these were in the Netherlands, but they were also hitmakers in Poland, and in New Zealand. In the next five years, the George Baker Selection had over ten Top Ten hits in various countries in continental Europe. Climbing to #2 in the Netherlands, “Dear Ann,” was such a success that Baker resigned from his job in the lemonade factory and became a full-time musician. However, the single was given the erroneous title “Little Green Bag”.Ī followup released, “Dear Ann”, charted in Chilliwack (BC). This was in reference to the color of the United States dollar.

The original title track from the band’s debut album was “Little Greenback”. Bouwens named the band after a character from a detective novel. The band recorded their first album in September 1969, after which, considering this was no soul music, they changed their name to The George Baker Selection. Visser and Bouwens wrote the song “Little Greenback” (sic) in the summer of 1969. Soul Invention played covers of songs by Otis Redding and Sam and Dave. The band consisted of Job Netten (guitar), Henk Kramer and Eric Bardoen (saxophone), Jacques Greuter (keyboard and flute), Theo Vermast and later Jan Visser (bass), and Ton Vredenburg (drums). This was a soul band that had been founded the previous year by Henk Kramer in Assendelft. In 1968, Hans Bouwen joined the band, Soul Invention. He sang and played guitar in a schoolband ( The Jokers) with Bob Ketzers, but at the age of 14 he left school and took jobs unloading ships on the Zaan and eventually as a factory worker at a lemonade factory. In 1961, he took the stage name “Body” and formed the band Body and the Wild Cats, with Bob Ketzers and his brother Ruud as well as Gerrit Bruyn on bass, all from Wormerveer. Bouwens was raised by his mother and his grandparents.

Months before Bouwens was born, his father, Peppino Caruso, a former Italian soldier from Calabria put to labor by the Germans in nearby Grosthuizen, had been killed while attempting to escape when he was to be transferred to Germany. Hans Bouwens was born in December 1944 in Hoorn, North Holland, the Netherlands.

The videos will be shared with other Spanish teachers, and they will vote on a winner.#162: Paloma Blanca by the George Baker Selection.

Share the music video with me via email by midnight on MAY 1 (you have just over a month!).

Make sure that any students that appear in the music video give you permission to share it publicly! If you have several groups of interested students, each one can submit a video. Your students can sing the song or they can lip-sync while the actual song plays in the background. It must incorporate some of the dance moves from the original music video. It could be a replica or it could be original.

Have an interested group of students (a small group, a whole class, many classes) create their own version of Georgie Dann's music video.

Use the song Paloma blanca in class ( use these activities or your own).

Third prize: A $25 TpT Gift Card and $25 toward a class party (to be paid via PayPal).

Second prize: A $25 TpT Gift Card and $50 toward a class party (to be paid via PayPal).

First prize: A class set of novels from toward a class party (to be paid via PayPal).

Una paloma blanca song in spanish utube