Peter Blanker

De Houtepoot played on Het Zeegat Uit by Cees Vlieland 20 Nov 2023.

Peter Blanker (born 11 June 1939 in Delfshaven) is a Dutch singer and Artist. Blanker sings and writes in the Levenslied genre, a somewhat sentimental popular genre, and teaches the writing of such songs. Many of his songs dealt with his birthplace (Delfshaven) and his later domicile (Rotterdam). He scored a minor hit in 1981 with a translation of a Mac Davis song, and for eleven years had a radio show dedicated to the Levenslied.

He wrote and produced a number of songs for Kinderen voor Kinderen, and for eleven years did a radio show on the Levenslied for the KRO, Levenslief en levensleed. He also taught songwriting in the genre, teaching his students to be wary of clichés and to work toward a generalizing moral in (typically) the third stanza. In the early 1990s he directed a writer’s collective which ended up producing a musical, Kaat Mossel. In 2003 his fortieth anniversary in show business was celebrated with a national tour, and in that same year he retired from performing; he moved to the Shetland Islands, where he led a sea shanty choir.