I remember as a teen being fascinated with the so-called British Invasion bands - Cream, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Animals - and, of course, the quality American groups like Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Doors. So when a song called “Venus” arrived on the U.S. charts in 1969, peaking quickly at No. 1 and selling millions of copies worldwide, I took little notice. The hit was over-played on the radio, plus there was so much other great stuff out there. The female vocalist was good, for sure, but the song was mellow, a plain-vanilla studio recording. The band was from the Netherlands, and, in America, relatively unknown other than for “Venus." I had always thought of them as one-hit wonders.
Not long ago, I was trolling through old YouTube performances of bands from the sixties, as I’m apt to do when I can’t sleep. In addition to my main beat at Forbes covering adventure, I write about classic rock. Truly live performances are hard to find on the channel because, back then, most videos were lip-synced, some horribly, to studio versions of the songs. When I came across “Venus,” though, one performance was stone-cold live, in 1970, in France. I was blown away by the band’s chops, especially vocalist Mariska Veres. Raw on stage, the charismatic woman sounded like a European equivalent of Airplane’s great Grace Slick.
When I googled Mariska, a bunch of references came up, but mostly to actress Mariska Hargitay, detective Olivia Benson on the long-running television series, “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” I continued to scroll down, eventually finding Veres. What an interesting person she was. My immediate thought was to track her down for an interview, but found sadly that she had passed in 2006. Of the Shocking Blue band members, in fact, only one is still alive - Robbie van Leeuwen, the lead guitarist and principal songwriter who had penned, “Venus,” and, as he admitted later, made him wealthy. But van Leeuwen is extremely media shy, and grants few interviews these days.
Veres, on stage, sang powerfully to where, like Slick, you couldn’t take your eyes off of her. She was also beautiful, like Slick. But in real life, unlike the wild-child Slick, Veres said in interviews that she was like, “Holy Mary.” Additionally, she spoke only Dutch, and, as such, had to memorize Shocking Blue's songs in English. A tidbit: In “Venus,” the opening lyric was misspelled on the song sheet. It was supposed to read, “A goddess on a mountain top." Veres sang it as it was typed, which was, “A godness on a mountain top.” Van Leeuwen later admitted that the gaffe was his fault. When Bananarama butchered the tune in 1986, the lyric was corrected.
In short, Shocking Blue was way more than “Venus.” Gems virtually unknown in America like, “Send Me A Postcard” (my personal favorite), “Never Marry A Railroad Man,” "Daemon Lover" and “Love Buzz,” (later covered by Nirvana, the raucous version of which did not impress van Leeuwen), will get your attention. From: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimclash/2024/02/15/shocking-blue-more-than-venus-check-them-out-you-may-be-shocked/
