Philip Kroonenberg

Philip Kroonenberg was born in Rotterdam 1952. In 1953 his family moved to Scheveningen, where he was brought up and lives again now. He started to play guitar at the age of eight.
Philip became interested in playing what he heard on the old Folkblues records his father had brought from the USA in 1956. Big Bill Broonzy, Lighning Hopkins, Leadbelly and Pete Seeger were his favourites. His father also loved French chansons and calypso’s. Philip has developed his own style of music in which you can recognize a mixture of these styles. Philip has developed his own way of playing guitar that moves between double bass fingerpicking, flatpicking and a flamenco-kind of strum.

From 1977 he sticks to just playing his own songs. He gets inspired by things that move him. Either happy or unhappy events, as long as a song comes out it’s been good for something.

His music sounds dark and sunny at the same time. From the swamps of southern parts of North-America to the sunny Caribbean islands. Songs are built around his acoustic guitar, an old Martin D41.

When he could no longer perform due to corona, fortunately his work as a psychotherapist continued and new songs emerged. Songs about his work and the state of the world and how time is becoming more and more precious. That became a new record: The Therapist. For The Therapist, the team that recorded his previous album Some More Time reunited: Reyer Zwart, Frans Hagenaars and Jeroen Kleijn. Americana of the highest order.