Vaya Con Dios

This article deals with the Belgian band Vaya Con Dios, for the film of the same name see Vaya con Dios (film) .

Vaya Con Dios
Dani Klein at the Summer Festival Brussels 2007
General information
Genre (s)	pop
founding	1986, 2004
resolution	1996
Website	www.vayacondios.info
Founding members
singing	Dani Klein
guitar	Willy Lambregt (until 1990)
bass	Dirk Schoufs (until 1991)
Drums	Philippe Allaert
Current occupation
singing	Dani Klein
guitar	Francis Perez
bass	Sal La Rocca
Drums & percussion	Hans van Oosterhout
piano	William Lecomte
Trumpet	Tim de Jonghe
former members
guitar	Jean-Michel Gielen

Vaya Con Dios is a Belgian band around the singer and musician Dani Klein , which was founded in 1986. With songs like Don't Cry for Louie, Puerto Rico, What's a Woman, Nah Neh Nah and Heading for a Fall , she had international success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Spanish name Vaya Con Dios means "go with God".

Band history

The three founding members of Vaya Con Dios had already gained musical experience in other formations. Dani Klein had got to know the music of Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding as a teenager in discotheques in Brussels and from then on became interested in soul music. After her first stage experience at the side of the Belgian chanson singer Maurane , as a background singer in the band Catalog of Cool and as a producer (e.g. for the Belgian band Blue Blot), she was temporarily a member of Arbeid Adelt! , a formation that had national success with a mixture of electronic and new wave . It was here that she met guitarist Willy Lambregt , who had previously played with the Scabs - a group known as the Belgian version of The Clash . The third founding member was the double bass player Dirk Schoufs , who had previously played in the rockabilly band The Wild Ones. Influenced by their common predilection for gypsy folk , jazz and opera , Dani Klein, Schoufs and Lampregt formed a new band in 1986 - Vaya Con Dios. The group name was reminiscent of the song of the same name by American swing and jazz singer Julie London from 1953.

After initial success (including an award at the Baccara Cup in 1987), the first album, Vaya Con Dios , was released in October 1988 . The record deal came about after Dani Klein and Schoufs submitted demo recordings of songs written by Schoufs. The single Just a Friend of Mine showed a mixture of chanson, blues, folk, jazz and intimate bar atmospheres as well as the influence of Spanish rhythms and sold over 300,000 times, which also made the debut album a bestseller, Further single -Doubles were Don't Cry for Louie, Puerto Rico and Johnny . The band's music was well received commercially - especially in the Benelux countries, Scandinavia , Germany and France. The group's sound, which consists of Latin , soul, blues , gypsy music, flamenco , chanson , jazz and swing elements, was rated by music critics as unusual and therefore difficult to classify. In the band, the success led to arguments. Looking back, Lambregt found a personal dilemma between quick fame and money on the one hand and rock 'n' roll he favored on the other. In 1990 he left Vaya Con Dios and returned to his old band, the Scabs. He was replaced by the guitarist Jean-Michel Gielen, who had already been involved in the recording of the first record. Both the first and the following releases were recorded with the involvement of session musicians .

With their second publication Night Owls, released in 1990, the band managed to continue their success story. The album contained the two biggest single hits What's a Woman , with which Vaya Con Dios also came into the German charts, and the gypsy style Nah Neh Nah (music: D. Schoufs and Dani Klein, text: Dani Klein and U. Balfe ) with a guitar solo played in Django Reinhardt style (using chromatic target notes ) and guitar of the Maccaferri type. In autumn 1990 the concerts of their successful Germany tour were sold out. After separating from his girlfriend Dani Klein, Dirk Schoufs left the band in 1991. In September 1992 the comparatively insubstantial album Time Flies was released , which, in contrast to the previous album, shows a strong soul influence. The record was produced by Dani Klein alone, which made the band the One Woman Show . The most famous hit was Heading for a Fall . The track was often played in the MTV program, but could not build on the success of other singles.

In 1993 Dani Klein and her band toured successfully around the world. The fourth album, Roots And Wings , was recorded in the Muscle Shoals studios in the US state of Alabama and was released in 1995. Compared to the previous albums, it was even more soul-influenced; elements of Arabic and Indian music were added . The brass set of the Muscle Shoals studio accompanied Vaya Con Dios on the European tour in 1996, as did Dani Klein's son Simon Schoovaerts, who played keyboards during the tour. The European tour was finally canceled prematurely by Dani Klein, because she felt burned out and she was no longer at ease with the gigantic effort. In retrospect, she said that over the years Vaya Con Dios had become a machine that somehow had to be kept running. Organizationally and personally, it was difficult to do tours with musicians who she only saw for a limited time a year. In order to find herself again, Dani Klein withdrew from show business for several years. In 1996 the sampler The Best of Vaya Con Dios was released , two years later another best-of compilation called What's a Woman. The Blue Sides of Vaya Con Dios . In 2000, Zounds / Lotus Records released a third compilation entitled Heading for a Fall - Best . Dani Klein has now been back with Purple Prose , a studio project put together from Brussels friends. The 1999 release of the same name contained quieter, chanson-like titles in English , French , Spanish and German - including Es wird schon geht wieder , a German version of the Vaya Con Dios piece What Will Come composed by Niki Reiser of This from the soundtrack to the film The Trio by Hermione Huntgeburth .

In 2004 a new studio album by Vaya Con Dios was released. Just like Purple Prose, The Promise also came up with pieces in several languages ​​that were heavily influenced by chanson. The fourth best-of compilation was the double CD The Ultimate Collection in 2006 . In addition to the most successful hits, it also contained two new songs and a concert DVD. In December 2009 Vaya Con Dios released their sixth studio album - Comme on est venue…. The album was recorded in the Igloo studios in Brussels and was created in collaboration with Belgian jazz luminary Toots Thielemans and jazz guitarist Philip Catherine . The producer was Dani Klein's son Simon Schoovaerts. Two of the songs were cover versions of pieces by the French chansonnier Léo Ferré . Unlike the previous albums, the lyrics were also completely in French. Dani Klein justified this with her preferences for French-speaking chanson artists such as Jacques Brel , Georges Brassens and Barbara and stated that with this record she was returning to her roots. In 2009 and 2010, Vaya Con Dios performed worldwide - including in Istanbul , Helsinki , Beirut , Jerusalem , Montreal and St. Petersburg . More than before, the new stage show was enriched with theatrical elements in the vaudeville style.

In commercial terms, Vaya Con Dios' career has been quite successful. By 1997, 7 million albums and 3 million singles had been sold. Several tracks have been covered by other artists over the years: Just a Friend of Mine by British jazz and blues singer Mary Coughlan , Don't Cry for Louie by Swedish jazz singer Suss von Ahn , Nah Neh Nah by, among others Electroswing band The Drapers , the German group Keimzeit , the Dutch entertainer Grad Damen and the Hungarian singer Szandi . Nah Neh Nah was mixed and recompiled in Eurodance style in three other versions from 2010: by Rico Bernasconi , the producer duo Milk & Sugar and Yolanda Be Cool in cooperation with the producer DCUP under the title Gypsy Moves and the artist name Vanity . The new version of Milk & Sugar vs. Vaya Con Dios made it into the German top ten in February 2011 - making the new version more successful than the original version from 1990.

Style and media coverage

The musical style of Vaya Con Dios - a mix of Latin, gypsy jazz, swing, blues and soul elements - was considered quite unusual in the late 1980s. The group’s music can best be compared with British blue-eyed soul and neoswing musicians such as Sade or Matt Bianco . The trade press rated the first two publications particularly positively. The radio presenter Frank Laufenberg wrote in his rock and pop hit lexicon that the second album sounded "as if it had been recorded in the hot Spanish sun". Even so, the group struggled with some acceptance problems over the course of its career. Unlike similarly successful bands, Vaya Con Dios are not listed in the two leading German rock encyclopedias ( Rowohlt and S. Fischer Verlag ). In a story about Belgian bands, Spiegel Online speculated that the Belgian music scene in Germany was generally neglected.

Although the commercial success of the last two albums falls significantly behind that of the band's early days, singer Dani Klein is still considered a distinctive, distinctive voice in the Western European soul and chanson genre. The lifestyle website Famous People described her musical position with the words: “It is not without good reason that she is often compared to the great soul vocalists of the sixties and seventies because of her pronounced and soulful voice.” The Dutch web zine Musiczine.nl showed was particularly enthusiastic about the chanson tones on Come est on venue ... : “The multilingual Dani Klein, 55 today, was inspired by the French chanson for the new album. It combines Piaf , Brel and Gainsbourg and contains a musical mixture of pop , soul and jazz. ” The author compared Dani Klein with the Belgian rock musician Jo Lemaire, who also works bilingual, and concluded with the view that both Dani Klein and Jo Lemaire are whether this multilingualism are ideal ambassadors for their country.

Dani Klein and her band also received media attention because of their socio-political engagement for Roma , illegal immigrants and against separatist movements in the Belgian regions of Flanders and Wallonia . On the occasion of the International Roma Day, the band performed on April 8, 2008 in front of the European Parliament in Strasbourg . In a statement on the event, Dani Klein called for understanding and tolerance for a minority who had a hard time in Europe. During performances in Eastern European countries , Vaya Con Dios played the Roma anthem Djelem, djelem several times , which was attended with enthusiasm by the audience. The singer also expressed herself quite critically in interviews about the precarious social situation of Belgian sans papiers . Illegals and artists have one thing in common - that they are not necessarily very much appreciated by the ruling society. However, Dani Klein would like her commitment to be understood in a purely humanitarian manner - not as taking sides in a certain political direction. When asked about the image of women conveyed in her texts, she said that women often bring a certain willingness to suffer in relationships. For the benefit of an undivided Belgium, Vaya Con Dios performed on June 6th 2010 at a big concert in Brussels - together with around 30 other artists and bands, including Daan, Jasper Steverlinck, Milow , Philip Catherine, Philippe Geluck , The Scabs and Sandra Kim .

Others

• It is unclear whether founding member Willy Lambregt (Willy Willy) was involved in the production of the first Vaya-Con-Dios LP. His name does not appear on the album. Lambregt did not finally leave the band until 1990 - before the second record was released. On his own website, Lambregt only lists the single Just a Friend of Mine as a Vaya-Con-Dios activity .
• In the early years, a logo with a jumping dog was an integral part of the group's corporate design . After the first two panels, this element disappeared. The Vaya-Con-Dios logo was not only included on the record covers, but also in the intro of some VCD music clips from that time.
• Some B-Side pieces are not included on the respective LP. Each Day is the back of Puerto Rico , You Let Me Down is the back of Just a Friend of Mine . Fooling around and Hot August Night are components of the Maxi-CD Stay with me, extracted from Roots and Wings . What Will Come of This , the film song from “Das Trio”, was initially released as a maxi CD, and a little later on the compilation What's a Woman. The Blue Sides of Vaya Con Dios . The German-language version of the song (It will work again) was included on both Purple Prose and The Promise .

Discography

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)						Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	BE F	BE W	NL
1988	Vaya Con Dios	DE49 (6 weeks) DE	AT10 (14 weeks) AT	CH24 platinum (4 weeks)CH	-	-	NL75 (4 weeks) NL	Chart entry in NL only in 1991
1990	Night Owls	DE6th platinum (68 weeks)DE	AT4th platinum (28 weeks)AT	CH1 × 3 Triple platinum (56 weeks)CH	-	-	NL5 platinum (49 weeks)NL
1992	Time flies	DE9 platinum (37 weeks)DE	AT4th gold (21 weeks)AT	CH1 × 3 Triple platinum (35 weeks)CH	-	-	NL1 platinum (34 weeks)NL
1995	Roots and Wings	DE33 (9 weeks) DE	AT11 (16 weeks) AT	CH3 gold (16 weeks)CH	BE F1 (24 weeks) BE F	BE W2 platinum (17 weeks)BE W	NL10 gold (29 weeks)NL
1996	The best of	DE21 (11 weeks) DE	AT15 (11 weeks) AT	CH19th gold (13 weeks)CH	BE F3 (20 weeks) BE F	BE W3 platinum (22 weeks)BE W	NL20 (18 weeks) NL
1999	Purple Prose	-	-	-	BE F39 (4 weeks) BE F	BE W43 (4 weeks) BE W	-	with Purple Prose
2004	The Promise	-	-	CH67 (2 weeks) CH	BE F12 (19 weeks) BE F	BE W73 (7 weeks) BE W	NL96 (1 week) NL
2006	The Ultimate Collection	-	-	CH52 (2 weeks) CH	BE F5 (27 weeks) BE F	BE W9 platinum (26 weeks)BE W	-
2009	Comme on est venu ...	-	-	-	BE F7 (41 weeks) BE F	BE W4th gold (46 weeks)BE W	-
2014	Thank you all!	-	-	-	BE F3 (43 weeks) BE F	BE W15th platinum (41 weeks)BE W	NL80 (1 week) NL

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

More albums

• 1998: What's a Woman - The Blue Sides
• 2000: Heading for a Fall - Best (period: 1988–95, label: Zounds , all tracks digitally remastered)

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)							Remarks	[↑]: treated together with the previous entry; [←]: placed in both charts
		DE	AT	CH	UK	BE F	BE W	NL
1987	Just a Friend of Mine Vaya Con Dios	-	-	-	-	BE F17 (4 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]		-
1988	Puerto Rico Vaya Con Dios	-	AT7 (8 weeks) AT	-	-	BE F15 (14 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]		-
	Don't Cry for Louie Vaya Con Dios	-	AT16 (2 weeks) AT	-	-	BE F27 (4 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]		-
1989	Johnny Vaya Con Dios	-	-	-	-	BE F40 (1 week) BE F[BE W : ←]		-
1990	What's a Woman Night Owls	DE11 (33 weeks) DE	AT7th gold (25 weeks)AT	CH6 (27 weeks) CH	-	BE F1 (19 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]		NL1 gold (15 weeks)NL
	Nah Neh Nah Night Owls	DE16 (32 weeks) DE	AT25 (5 weeks) AT	CH21 (5 weeks) CH	-	BE F7 (14 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]		NL3 (12 weeks) NL
	Night Owls Night Owls	DE53 (10 weeks) DE	-	-	-	BE F42 (4 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]		-
1992	Heading for a Fall Time Flies	DE29 (21 weeks) DE	AT10 (15 weeks) AT	CH5 (21 weeks) CH	-	BE F1 (15 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]		NL7 (13 weeks) NL
	Time Flies Time Flies	DE79 (5 weeks) DE	AT19 (1 week) AT	CH30 (6 weeks) CH	-	BE F8 (11 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]		-
1993	So Long Ago Time Flies	DE67 (7 weeks) DE	-	-	-	BE F33 (4 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]		-
1995	Don't Break My Heart Roots and Wings	-	-	-	-	BE F6 (15 weeks) BE F	BE W8 (10 weeks) BE W	NL33 (4 weeks) NL
1996	Stay with Me Roots and Wings	-	-	-	-	BE F46 (3 weeks) BE F	-	-
2009	Les voiliers sauvages de nos vies Comme on est venu…	-	-	-	-	-	BE W34 (1 week) BE W	-
2010	Hey (Nah Neh Nah) The Album	DE7th gold (29 weeks)DE	AT6th gold (25 weeks)AT	CH4 (23 weeks) CH	UK94 (1 week) UK	BE F10 (9 weeks) BE F	BE W46 (1 week) BE W	NL4 (13 weeks) NL	with Milk & Sugar

More singles

• 1993: For You
• 1996: Lonely Feeling
• 1998: What Will Come of This
• 1999: Who Wants to Be Lonely (with Purple Prose)
• 1999: Dirty Gold (with Purple Prose)
• 2004: No One Can Make You Stay
• 2005: The Promise
• 2010: Nah Neh Nah ( Rico Bernasconi vs. Vaya Con Dios)

Awards for music sales

Golden record  Finland 1990: for the album Night Owls  Norway 1996: for the album Roots and Wings 1997: for the album The Best Of

Platinum record  Finland 1989: for the album Vaya Con Dios  Norway 1994: for the album Time Flies

Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.

Country / Region	gold	platinum	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
Belgium (BEA)	gold1	4 × platinum4th	120,000	ultratop.be
Germany (BVMI)	gold1	2 × platinum2	1,150,000	musikindustrie.de
Finland (IFPI)	gold1	platinum1	94,668	ifpi.fi
Netherlands (NVPI)	2 × gold2	2 × platinum2	325,000	nvpi.nl
Norway (IFPI)	2 × gold2	platinum1	80,000	ifpi.no ( Memento from November 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
Austria (IFPI)	3 × gold3	platinum1	125,000	ifpi.at
Switzerland (IFPI)	2 × gold2	7 × platinum7th	400,000	hitparade.ch
All in all	12 × gold12	18 × platinum18th

swell

1. ↑ ^{a b} Lisa Bradshaw: Vaya Con Dios Biography .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Text version of the bio article on the band's official website  
2. ^ ^{A b} Dani Klein (Danielle Schoovaerts) . dasisttoll.com, biography post about Dani Klein
3. ↑ Biography of Vaya Con Dios ( Memento of the original from September 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on music-story.com; accessed on February 16, 2011 (English) 
4. ^ Wieland Harms: The Unplugged Guitar Book. 20 of the most beautiful songs for acoustic guitar. Gerig Music, ISBN 3-87252-249-3 , p. 95.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Vaya Con Dios . Belgian Pop & Rock Archive, last site upgrade: March 2002; Biographical article about the band
6. ↑ Willy Willy's artist website , Biography section . Biography of Willy Lambregt
7. ^ Wieland Harms: The Unplugged Guitar Book. 20 of the most beautiful songs for acoustic guitar. Gerig Music, ISBN 3-87252-249-3 , pp. 95-101 ( Nah Neh Nah ).
8. ^ Wieland Harms: The Unplugged Guitar Book. 20 of the most beautiful songs for acoustic guitar. Gerig Music, ISBN 3-87252-249-3 , p. 95.
9. ↑ ^{a b c} Christoph Aebi: If you don't have a good self-image, you look for love at all costs . Nahaufnahme.ch, November 2009; Interview with Dani Klein.
10. ↑ Vaya Con Dios "Nah Neh Nah" . ledere.parti-socialiste.fr, Socialiste de l'île de Ré, 30 January 2009
11. ↑ coverinfo.de
12. ^ Frank Laufenberg : Hit Lexicon of Rock and Pop. Volume 3. Ullstein, 2007, ISBN 978-3-548-36920-4 .
13. ↑ Wolfgang Kampmann, Siegfried Schmidt-Joos , Bernward Halbscheffel, Barry Graves : Rock-Lexikon 2. Rowohlt Verlag, August 2008, ISBN 978-3-499-62133-8 . Christian Graf, Burghard Rausch: Rock Music Lexicon Europe. Volume 2. Fischer paperback, 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16429-5 .
14. ↑ Hooverphonic: "Blue Wonder Power Milk" . Spiegel Online , July 23, 1998
15. ^ Uwe Sörensen: Dani Klein . ( Memento of the original from October 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Famous People.de, January 29, 2011 
16. ↑ Johan Meurisse: Pop Rock .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. musiczine.net, review of Come est on venue… (Dutch)  
17. ^ V aya Con Dios singer Dani Klein about her commitment and her admiration for the Roma , website of the European Parliament, April 8, 2008
18. ^ Artiesten treden weer op voor sea solidariteit . ( Memento of the original from June 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Online edition of the Belgian news magazine Knack , May 31, 2010 
19. ↑ Willy Willy's website , Music section
20. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: DE AT CH UK NL Albums NL Singles BEW BEF

Web links

• Official Site of Vaya Con Dios (English)
• Vaya Con Dios on MySpace
• If you don't have a good self-image, you are looking for love at all costs . Interview with Dani Klein from Christoph Aebi at nahaufnahme.ch.
• Dani Klein (Danielle Schoovaerts) . dasisttoll.com