Toni Willé (full name Antonia Johanna Cornelia Veldpaus; born 26 June 1953) is a Dutch country pop artist who was the lead vocalist of Pussycat, the musical group that also included her two elder sisters and achieved an international No.1 hit with the song "Mississippi" in 1975/76.
Childhood Toni is the third daughter of Marie Verheijen and Toon Veldpaus. Toon died from Hodgkin's disease shortly before Toni's birth, when her sister Marianne was two years old and Betty was only one. Three years later her mother Marie married Stefan Kowalczyk, a Polish miner who came to the Netherlands in 1948 to work in the coal mines after serving in the US Army in Germany. He brought up the children and promoted their music talents.
When Toni, Betty and Marianne were six, seven and eight, the family moved to Treebeek, a city quarter in Brunssum in the south-east Netherlands. At the annual children's festivities of Sinterklaas, he bought them each an acoustic guitar and engaged Ben Keuzenkamp as guitar tutor. With guitars, they performed during carnivals, talent scoutings and parties as The Singing Sisters. It was during this time that their characteristic close harmony style singing came into being. Their repertoire initially consisted mostly of German pop songs. However they say, this kind of music soon ended with the arrival of The Beatles.
A few years later, Keuzenkamp introduced the sisters to 18-year-old Werner Theunissen, a guitarist from 'The Entertainers' whom he got in touch with through an ad in the papers. Theunissen acquainted them with contemporary pop music. It was then that they became a proper girl band with Betty on solo guitar, Marianne on bass, Toni on vocals and a friend Tonny Jeroense on drums.
Musical career
Toni's career as lead vocalist of Pussycat started with her two older siblings, Betty and Marianne Veldpaus as The Singing Sisters (Zingende Zusjes) in 1963.
When the beat-era came, The Singing Sisters changed their style. It was around this time they introduced a female drummer, Tonny Jeroense, and began to call themselves 'The BGs' or 'The Beat Girls from Holland', one of the first female groups in the Netherlands. They sang Bee Gees and Motown songs with close harmony and so people referred to them as the Dutch Bee Gees. They practised in the garage under their house. The sisters recollect those days as being the best time of their lives. They even performed in the French part of Belgium. To make their travelling easier, their parents bought them a minivan along with some music equipment.
A few years later, they recruited male members to the band. In 1973, the new ensemble led by guitar teacher Werner Theunissen was renamed 'Sweet Reaction'. The members now included Toni and her two sisters along with Lou Willé (guitarist from a band called Ricky Rendall and His Centurions), and Hans Lutjens (drummer from a band called Scum). Werner, their composer continued writing songs with three part vocals. In the same year, Sweet Reaction released their first single "Tell Alain" on the 'Telstar label owned by Johnny Hoes. Although the single was unsuccessful as it didn't sell well, they ended up performing it on Eddy Becker's 'The Eddy-Go-Round Show'. Apart from Demis Roussos, another guest on that show was Soulful Dynamics which had a big hit with the song "Mademoiselle Ninette" at that time. With their Belgian producers, Toni's band the 'Sweet Reaction' recorded the song "Come Back my Dream", the successor of "Tell Alain". This song achieved reasonable success and acclaim. Soon after this success, Johnny Hoes released "Daddy" under his record label which was their third single in a row. It was around this time the band seemed to urgently need a name change. So when the single "Daddy" was released, underneath the band name on the cover it read in glaring letters "Now Pussycat". After this, Toni went on to record a solo single called "Let me Live my life", backed by "For You" under the moniker 'Sally Lane'. However, this single was not a success either.
Pussycat
In 1975, EMI Bovema took Pussycat under contract with Toni as lead singer along with her two sisters as backing vocalists accompanied by Lou Willé (guitarist), Theo Wetzels (bassist), John Theunissen (guitarist), Theo Coumans (drummer from 1975 to 1978) and later Hans Lutjens (drummer from 1978). With EMI arranger Eddy Hilberts as producer, the new name Pussycat finally started taking its new shape. Their first hits were all written and composed by Theunissen.
The name Pussycat will forever be linked to the 1976 number 1 hit "Mississippi". Although the band from Limburg, featuring the three sisters, had many more hits in the following years, "Mississippi" is still considered to be the band's undisputed masterpiece. In 1976 it remained for four weeks at No. 1 in Britain (UK Singles Chart) and Germany and from there all over Europe, Latin America, Australia, Africa and Asia. Four million singles were sold in 1976. It was the most sold record in Germany. In Brazil, "Mississippi" stayed in the charts for 129 weeks. It became No. 1 in 30 countries from Europe to South Africa. More than 5 million copies were sold worldwide. On 5 January 1977, Pussycat was awarded the Conamus Export Prize by the British Ambassador to the Netherlands, Sir John Barnes, for being the first Dutch pop group in the British charts.
Their follow-up Georgie reached at No.4 in the Netherlands, "Smile" (also in 1976) went to No.2 and My Broken Souvenirs, both became No. 1 hits in the Top 40. These songs were translated into German for single release in Germany. They also released a German version of "Mississippi". But it did not do as well as the English version. Apart from these songs, they also came out with German versions of "Take Me, Take Me" (Heute Heute Heute) and "Pasadena". With "Same Old Song" and "Doin' La Bamba" both huge hits of the 1980, they were able to get a taste of the old Motown songs once more. During the following 10 years, six albums and 17 singles were produced, all successful.
Pussycat continued to record albums and singles as well as perform all over the world throughout the late '70s and early '80s before breaking up in 1985. Betty focused on raising a family, Marianne became the owner of a bar in Brunssum, and Toni, who has a son and daughter, is the only one who pursued a professional career in music. In 1999, however, the three of them got back together to perform at several reunion concerts. More recently Pussycat contributed to the country band Major Dundee's single "Somewhere Someone" in 2005 and singer Dennis Jones' Dutch reggae cover of their signature hit song "Mississippi" in 2007.
The story behind Mississippi
"Mississippi" was another song composed by Werner Theunissen. It was written in the same vein as "Massachusetts" by the Bee Gees, a song he liked very much. The band started to play the song live for a few months and later they sent a demo of it to EMI Bovema in Heemstede, who were immediately interested. They ended up re-recording the song in the EMI Studio. But this did not work out as planned. Their producer at that time Eddy Hilberts who had success with a repertoire of country songs gave a country like twist to the song. Personally the sisters did not have anything with country music, although influenced by the Eagles, they liked country rock.
"Mississippi" was released as a single in April 1975. Initially, it did nothing, until Meta de Vries, the Dutch radio jockey started playing it. She thought Pussycat was an English band. Hans Van Willigenburg played the song on his radio programme as well. During his broadcast, he would play three new songs, after which listeners could vote by postcard which artist should be invited to his studio. They voted for Pussycat. The group also performed the song for the TV show 'Herkent U Deze Tijd' by Kick Stokhuyzen. The same week the single entered the Top 40 in November 1975. The following week, they performed "Mississippi"' at TopPop and a week later, the single had climbed to # 1. Although Toni and Marianne still worked as typists for DSM, they were unable to maintain their jobs as besides the Netherlands, "Mississippi" had become No. 1 in Germany as well. As their fame grew, the band realized they needed a manager, so their record company got them their new manager Jan Buys.
Oddly enough, at first they did not want to release the single in Germany nor UK because of the initial lack of interest. Eventually, the single was released in the UK on Sonet, a small record label. In the Autumn of 1976, the single was number 1 in the UK charts.
In addition to the Netherlands, Germany and UK, the single was #1 in Austria, Switzerland, Norway and Brazil. Though this song never became a hit in the United States, it was covered by a number of American artists such as Barbara Fairchild and Lucille Starr.
1985 – Going solo
By 1981, it became popular for artists to perform with a tape instead of a backing band as this was much cheaper and more attractive for venue owners. So Toni and her sisters had no choice but to part with their backing band, reducing the group to only Toni, Betty, Marianne and Toni's husband Lou Willé. Their new producer was now Pim Koopman.
A few more hits and in the meantime, family life started to take effect within the band. Betty had a little child and so had Toni. This was partly the reason they were unable to accept invitations to visit Japan, Australia and Singapore, although they managed to schedule a one-month trip to South Africa. The group finally disbanded in the year 1985.
Toni had a successful solo career covering songs by Chris Rea and Anne Murray on her albums. Three solo albums appeared: "Privilege" in 1985, "Working Girl" in 1987, and "New Words to an Old Love Song" in 1989. She recorded a number of solo albums and recorded duets with famous artists like Marco Bakker, Benny Neyman and Major Dundee Band. She recorded two singles with singer and songwriter Dick Van Altena of Major Dundee Band: "It turned Out To Be You" in 1990 and "Raised on Love" in 1995. In 1999 she recorded "Mama", a single written by Dick Van Altena that appeared on many albums including Diverse Artiesten – De Geschiedenis Van De Limburgse Popmuziek 3, a compilation of songs from Dutch artists from Limburg. The Rarities bonus CD contains part of Toni's solo work. Besides "Love in a Heatwave", the theme of the film De Flat starring Rene Soutendijk, it also contains "Heart Half Empty", the duet with Danny Vera.
In 2007, Toni sang "I Wanna Love You" from her new album "Fantastic Stores" as a duet with Jess Robin on the Slovenian breakfast TV show.
With her album Pussycat – The Collection and More she re-recorded the hits of Pussycat with "I'll be your woman" along with new songs like the ballads "Desperado", "Still on my mind" and the Elkie Brooks hit, "Pearl's a Singer".
Accolades Toni's first accolade came with Pussycat in 1977, when the band won a Goldener Lowe Award in Germany and subsequently an Edison and a Silver Harp in the Netherlands, awarded to them by the Dutch Ambassador.
Privilege in 1985 was followed by Working Girl in 1987 and New Words to an Old Love Song in 1989 for which the Dutch magazine Country Gazette named her best female country singer of the year and the album became the best country CD of that year. She received the same accolade in 1990, 1991 and 1992. She sang the theme song "Love in a Heatwave" for the movie thriller De Flat in 1994.
Comeback
In 1995 Toni and her sisters appeared on the Single Luck program where they looked back at the success of "Mississippi".
In 2001, they held a reunion show at the Zomerparkfeest in Venlo, to a stubborn crowd of 30,000. In 2005, they get together again to back "Somewhere Someone" for the band Major Dundee's album Young Gods, with whom Toni had performed in 1995. She also features in another song with them titled "You Ain't What You Ain't" from the same album.