Mouth & MacNeal

Mouth & MacNeal were Willem Duyn (b. 31 March 1937) and Sjoukje van 't Spijker (b. 5 May 1950). Willem had been a member of several unsuccesful bands in the 1960s and he was about to give up music when he teamed up with producer Hans van Hemert and female singer Sjoukje van 't Spijker. Although Willem was much older than Sjoukje (thirteen years), there was some kind of chemistry between the two: Willem as the rough and loud-mouthed (hence his artist name) singer, and Sjoukje as the soft and tender girl. Their career started in 1971 with Hey You Love, after which two number one hits followed: "Hello-A" and "How Do You Do". The latter even reached the American top ten. In 1974 they performed Ik Zie Een Ster at the national final, but they sang it in English at the ESC, where they finished third (not a bad result, given the fact that the top two were Abba and Olivia Newton John). I See A Star even went on to become an international hit. Mouth & MacNeal suddenly split up in December 1974, after which the Mouth teamed up with his wife Ingrid Kup to form the duo Big Mouth & Little Eve. It was clearly a wrong career move, as Willem never had the success he had enjoyed with Sjoukje.

The duo of Big Mouth and Maggie MacNeal, real names: Willem Duyn (ex-Speedway) and Sjoukje van 't Spijker (ex-solo act), existed from 1971 till 1974. Afterwards, Big Mouth teamed up with Little Eve for another duo act, while Maggie started her solo career.

"How do you do" became Mouth & MacNeal's international hit. Their accompanying group in 1971 consisted of: Loek Das (g, ex-Speedway), Dick Hanzon (dr, ex-Whiskers, in 1972 replaced by Frans Smit, ex-Brainbox), Ger Dijkshoorn (b, ex-Whiskers) and Ador Otting (o,p, ex-September, to Pandemonium).
In 1973, the group featured: Ron Meyes (g, ex-Temple, to Q'65), Frans Smit (dr, to Maggie MacNeal), Ger Veldhuisen (o,p, ex-Temple, to Johnny Kendall) and Rein Schipper (b, ex-Lobster, to Innerminit, Dynamo, Natasja Emanuels, Wim Hogenkamp and Thérèse Steinmetz).

Willem Duyn died from a heart attack in his hometown of Roswinkel on December 4, 2004 at the age of 67.

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