Жонни Йордаан: Амстердам жұлдызы және Йордаан әндерінің патшасы

Johnny Jordaan was the pseudonym for Johannes Hendricus van Musscher (7 February 1924 – 8 January 1989), a Dutch singer of popular music, in particular the genre known as levenslied, a Dutch variety of the French chanson. He was well known for his songs about the city of Amsterdam, especially the Jordaan district (the genre dedicated to the neighborhood is known as the Jordaanlied), which he sang in a typical "hiccuping Mokum vibrato", "Mokum" being the Hebrew derived nickname for the Amsterdam inner city area. In the 1950s, Johnny Jordaan rose almost instantly to the level of national celebrity and became the "uncrowned king of the Jordaanlied", and his hit song "Geef mij maar Amsterdam" is one of the songs Amsterdammers identify with most.

Jordaan was born the son of a roofer, and grew up within sight of the Westertoren, on the corner of the Lijnbaansgracht and the Rozengracht, the edge of the Jordaan—by then an impoverished working class neighborhood. He was the oldest of two brothers in a Roman Catholic workers' family. He started singing in the streets at age 8, with his cousin Carel Verbrugge (Willy Alberti), to help provide for his family. He lost an eye during a fight with Verbrugge, at age 9. He started using the name "Johnny Jordaan" when he was 14, and after vocational school began working various odd jobs and singing in bars. Despite already having discovered his homosexuality, he married in 1943.

In 1955, he won a singing competition, the "Jordaan festival", organized by the record company Bovema in collaboration with singer and composer Louis Noiret; the aim was to find the best voices from the Jordaan. His lifelong friend Tante Leen, a notable Jordaan singer in her own right, finished second in the same competition. Cabaret artist and historian Jacques Klöters referred to 1955 as "the year of Johnny Jordaan": he sold hundreds of thousands of records within months, got to perform in the Concertgebouw with Tante Leen, and helped popularize the "uncivilized" Jordaan dialect. Johnny's own celebrity was made apparent in 1956, when he and his wife celebrated their wedding anniversary by being driven through the Jordaan in a carriage and singing in front of a crowd of 30,000 people: the Polygoon newsreel includes it among the most important events of the year. In the pillarized world of the Netherlands of the 1950s and 1960s, commercial success ("Geef mij maar Amsterdam" sold over a million copies) did not mean receiving airplay with all broadcasting organizations—the socialist VARA, for instance, boycotted his music since it was too low brow.

Financial mismanagement brought him financial ruin; and a café he opened in Rotterdam in 1962 had to close due to tax debts. He avoided the tax man by leaving for Antwerp to start a café there,

His health had always been frail, and in the early 1970s he suffered further hemorrhages and a number of heart attacks. His farewell to his audience was a 1972 television show in collaboration with Tante Leen, Willy Alberti, Ramses Shaffy, Zwarte Riek, Harry de Groot, and songwriter Pi Vèriss. He is buried in the family grave at Vredenhof cemetery.

The Johnny Jordaanplein ("Johnny Jordaan Square"), off the Elandsgracht in the Jordaan, is named for him; the square contains statues of Jordaan and Tante Leen, and of Jordaan's regular accordionist Johnny Meijer. Since he had lived the last few years of his life in the Staatsliedenbuurt (to the west of the Jordaan), that neighborhood also vied for a square named for him; the singer had really no connection to the Elandsgracht at all, though was engaged in the Edison theater there for a month in 1957. A 1990 benefit concert in the Carré Theatre paid for a bust, which was placed on a parking lot in 1991 off the Elandsgracht. The dispute was fought out in the neighborhoods' newspapers; in the end the Jordaan won out. Local brewery De Prael brews "Johnny", a blonde ale—blonde for his fair hair—and in 2006 the Amsterdam Museum held an exposition to remember him, Geef mij maar Amsterdam. In 1997, a biographical musical, Oh, Johnny, was performed at the Amsterdams Kleinkunstfestival. The first Johnny Jordaan DVD, released in 2005 and also called Bij ons in de Jordaan, entered the DVD music charts at No. 1. The DVD had been compiled by Peter Pols, a lifelong fan of Johnny and later his chauffeur and friend; Pols (Amsterdam, 1948–2009) collected everything related to Johnny and after his death donated his collection to the Amsterdam City Archives.