Johnny Meijer
Dutch accordeonist (1912-1992)
Johnny Meijer (born 'Jan Cornelis Meijer' 1 October 1912 in Amsterdam; died 8 January 1992 in Amsterdam) was a Dutch accordionist who played classical, folk, and swing.
For a time he was known as a jazz accordionist and his 75th birthday was celebrated at the North Sea Jazz Festival. He was also the subject of a film.
Besides the popular songs he also played fast swing numbers, Romanian music and classical pieces and was widely recognized as a virtuoso jazz accordionist. In 1974 he recorded the Dutch Swing College Band Johnny Goes Dixie LP, which went gold.
He will be remembered primarily as a live performer of folk music in Amsterdam. He was typically seen during performances with a cigar in his mouth, and his accordion (which can be seen at the Gert Nijkamp Muziekhuis in Apeldoorn) shows several burn marks as a result of this. In the last years of his life, Johnny Meyer was rarely invited to play large performances, mainly in connection with his short temper and his drinking, and thus the King of the Accordion saw out his final days mostly in silence, occasionally playing at weddings and parties.
In a televised interview during the North Sea Jazz Festival 2015 Richard Galliano specifically named Johnny Meyer as a major influence on his work.
The public source identifies “Johnny Meijer” as dutch accordeonist (1912-1992). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Johnny, Meijer and Dutch.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 1, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q2656608. VIAF identifies the subject as 281907165. The Library of Congress control number is no2014073583. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1912, 1992, 1974 and 2015.
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This entry incorporates text from “Johnny Meijer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.