George Kooymans

George Kooymans was the guitarist and co-founder of Golden Earring, the longest-lived and most successful rock group the Netherlands ever produced. Kooymans was born on March 11, 1948, in The Hague, and co-founded an instrumental rock & roll combo, the Tornados, with childhood friend and bassist Rinus Gerritsen in 1961. Not long afterward, a British group of the same name had an international hit with "Telstar," and Kooymans and Gerritsen changed the band's name to the Golden Earrings, after a Peggy Lee song. In 1965, having adopted a British beat style, they became the first ...