THE FIRST BELGIAN STEEL GUITAR CD WAS RELEASED BY THE PIONEER AND THE BELGIAN MAESTRO ON STEEL: JEF MARINUS

RELEASE March 7, 2018 'De Casino' in Sint-Niklaas, performance + live concert with guests Paul Michiels (PP MICHIELS) and Doug Adkins (Montana USA)

Jef Marinus is a boy from the Antwerp Kempen, from the municipality of Vosselaar and has lived in the Waasland for more than 30 years. Music flows through his veins, a microbe he inherited from his late father.

At an early age, Jef started music training at the Turnhout music academy, where he studied classical guitar, while of course he also took private lessons with the most famous teachers of that time. Jazz and Big Band were also included in the curriculum and so Jef has grown into a multi-instrumentalist. Guitar, dobro, banjo, harmonica, bass, lap steel and of course Pedal Steel!

Despite the classical training, the electric guitar was quickly taken up, we are talking about the early sixties here, so the motto was: Latvian rock and roll!

Those were good times and Jef had the privilege of playing in numerous music bands and accompanying many of our national artists such as Ann Christy, Helmut Lotti, Will Tura, Gunther Neefs, Conny Neefs, Carine Setter, Ninon and many others. of others.

He also shared the stage with a large number of international artists such as Johnny Logan, The Platters, Lee Towers, Gerard Joling, Anita Meyer, The Bleu Diamonds, Mieke, Sandra Van Reys, Ben Steneker, Jimmy Lawton...

Jefke Marinus is still a popular guitarist and when he puts his guitar on his neck, people love it!

In the meantime, Jef had attacked his father's lap steel and that attack would have major consequences, that Lapsteel guitar - 6 string was the step to the Pedal Steel guitar, a small switch with fantastic consequences!

Because after playing rock and roll for about 15 years, Jef got a taste for country music and founded the group Bourbon with which he traveled through Europe. With great success by the way!

No country music without the sounds of a steel guitar and Jef wanted to specialize and studied until 8 to 9 nine hours a day. Belgium was rich in good guitarists, but Jef wanted to distinguish himself on the steel guitar. Jef was invited to the steel guitar convention in Oudewater, got to know the icon Jan Visser then The steel days in Newburry where he shared the bune with Gerry Hogan, Albert Lee and the master himself Buddy Emmons ... and then what every steel guitarist dreamed of, an invitation from Scotty De Wit himself to perform during the International Steel Guitar Convention in St-Louis (USA), a great honor for a little Belgian!

From Scotty he received the award for best foreign talent of 1988.

He met all his heroes there and these heroes became good friends, together with Buddy Emmons he bought his first 'real steel guitar' there, we are talking about the year 1988 and to this day this instrument still shines and produces wonderful music. out ! And Jef continued, he followed the courses of the grandmasters in America, Jeff Newman, Paul Franklin, Hall Rug, Doug Jernignan and of course Buddy Emmons... and it soon became clear that this study would become a life's work, because now 30 years later he is studying he still practices every day on his great pride: his ZumSteel guitar, which has recently been expanded for practical reasons: an Emmons Legrande III and a black Mullen now also have a place in the music room.

During those many years, a lot of nice things happened, too many to mention, Jef traveled through Europe to give steel concerts, accompanied various artists at our northern neighbors in television shows, such as with the Tros:

Holliday Shows, Euro Country Masters; for RTL Barend and Vandorp etc etc.

He played with his group in Frost National in the program of Emmylou Harris and was eventually a guest a few times at the major steel guitar meetings in ST Louis America, and was named the best European steel guitar player by Jeff Newman, hard work pays off! talk about an emotional moment!

But Jef continued to work in his own modest way. Also in Belgium, several artists love Country Music, for example Jef collaborated on several albums by Hemut Lotti, TatYana Storm with which he also did several TV performances, albums for the group Das Pop, Chitlin Folks with Pascal Deweze and also with those groups. he did several projects, it was exceptional for that time that a steel guitar was used on PUKKELPOP! Jef did Café Cosari with Jo Vally and still does several concerts with Bandit every year and the sympathetic singer Ida De Nijs also loves Jef's steel guitar sound.

In November 2017, Jef was still too far away