Carike Keuzenkamp

Carike was one of the darlings of the Afrikaans music scene. She was born in Den Haag in The Netherlands, but moved to South Africa where she made a name for herself as a singer. Her full name is Elizabeth Maria Magdalena van Zyl, so if you thought spelling out the long surname Keuzenkamp was a pain, just be glad she chose a different stage name to her full real one.

In 1967 she starred in the film ‘Die Professor En Die Prikkelpop’ in which she sang a version of Four Jacks & A Jill’s hit ‘Timothy’. The film extract on Youtube that shows her singing the song would have been regarded as quite raunchy back then as it shows Carike and some scantily clad girls sitting around in a room while Carike performs an acoustic version of the song. And they moan about the outfits the girls wear in pop videos these days!

The film version of the song is a simple guitar and voice recording whereas the version that appears on The Best Of SA Pop series is fleshed out with piano and a little bass, but it is still a simple arrangement which relies heavily on Carike’s pure vocals. This compared to the Four Jacks And A Jill version which has drums and some brassy bits and presents a much fuller sound.

There probably were and probably will be lots of arguments about which version is better. The public back in 1967 thought both were groovy (because groovy was a word in use back then) and sent both Carike and Four Jacks & A Jill to the top of the charts with their respective versions. Whichever one you decide on, it is worth listening to this one for its more innocent and sparser