Blue Diamonds

The Blue Diamonds are two Dutch brothers Ruud en Riem de Wolff.

The Blue Diamonds were exponents of the famous Indo-rock scene, the cradle for all Dutch rockmusic way back in the 50's.

Inhabitants of the formar Dutch colony Indonesia mixed their rural musical influences with the new rock & roll from the US.

The Blue Diamonds covered many Everly Brothers songs, but became really famous with an up tempo version of a musical song, 'Ramona'.

Ruud and Riem were born in Batavia, Indonesia, in 1949 they moved to the Netherlands.
They were so-called Indorockers.
Their breakthrough came in 1959, with their single Till I kissed you, a cover from the Everly Brothers.

Almost all of their hitsingles were covers, just a few were originals.

Like many band that time they recorded their own versions of popular international songs such as; Oh Carol, Let it be me and Sukiyaki.

Also their biggest hit was a cover: Ramona.
This song, originally from the 1927 movie Ramona, was original sung by Dolores del Rio.
In 1960 it became a big international hit for the Blue Diamonds.
In Holland it reached #1, in Germany it reached #1 and Belgium and Norway #2.
It even reached the American Billboard Hot 100: #72.
All over Europa they reached the charts.

Even a Spanish version was released, it became a big hit in a.o. Mexico, Spain and other Spanish speaking countries.

Almost a year later, they released Little ship.
Also this song reached #1 in the Netherlands.
In Belgium's Song Parade it reached #22 and in Germany it was a #30 as Blaues Boot der Sehnsucht.

As they had hits in the Netherlands with songs in English, they adapted their songs for the German market by translating them.
Little ship was already written in 1958 by the successful writers duo Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. However, nobody wanted to record it, so the Blue Diamonds were the first in 1961.

In the sixties they toured all over Europa, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Hong Kong, Shri Lanka and many other countries.

The Blue Diamonds had no more hits after 1971 but they performed until 2000.
Their last performance was November, 2000.

In December 2000, Ruud died at the age of 59.