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Boudewijn de Groot was born on May 20th, 1944 in a Japanese concentration camp in Indonesia. Shortly after the war, the de Groot family returned to Holland and settled in Heemstede. Boudewijn was admitted into the Haarlem Coorbhert Lyceum. It's there that he met Lennaert Nijgh. Influenced by Jaques Brel, but even more by Jaap Fisher, they started composing songs together. After high school, Boudewijn enrolled in the Movie Academy in Amsterdam. However, besides his academic studies, he continued making music together with Lennaert Nijgh. In 1964, Boudewijn recorded a demo tape with songs which were inspired by popular news anchor Ed Lautenslager. As a result, he got his first single released on the Phonogram record label. In October 1965, he landed his first hit single, "Een meisje van zestien", a Lennaert Nijgh version of the Charlez Aznavour song "Un Enfant". Boudewijn had left the Movie Academy one year prior to that and started working at 'Bijenkorf', a megastore in Amsterdam. After the success of "Een meisje van zestien" he decided to turn professional.
This turned out to be a wise decision, as he soon became Holland's most popular singer/songwriter! The Top 10 song "Welterusten Meneer de President" ("Sleep Well, Mr. President") also made him known as a protest singer/songwriter - a monicker, which he would carry on with for many years to come, something Boudewijn himself is not very happy about.
His breaktrough came in early 1967, with the No.1 hit, "Het land van Maas en Waal" ("The land of Maas and Waal" - two Dutch rivers). In the meantime the "Apocalyps" (66) and "Voor de Overlevenden" (66) were released to much acclaim, the latter being the first real 'adult' product of the collaboration between Boudewijn and Lennaert Nijgh. Influenced by the upcoming hippie movement, as well as his friends at the music magazine 'Hitweek', Boudewijn produced a 'flower-power' album in 1967, called "Picknick". Later he confessed that this was his least 'personal' and album of all. On it, he was aided by Elly Nieman, which resulted in another Top 10 hit, "Prikkebeen". This was followed up by the mystic and pretentious "Nacht en Ontij" LP (68), which distanced him from his followers. At this point, he also parted company with Lennaert Nijgh.
In 1969 Boudewijn announced that he would no longer perform live. After an unsuccesfull period involving English language repertoir, and a band of his own, called 'Tower', which produced singles, "In your life" and "Captain Decker", Boudewijn rejoined Phonogram, in 1970, this time in the capacity of a producer. No new albums of his were released during this period, however, he stayed quite popular, still! "Boudewijn in concert", a double album containing old successful hit songs is a proof of that: over 50,000 copies sold. After "Als de rook om je hoofd is verdwenen", ("It won't make it into the Top 20"), the "Hoe sterk is de eenzame fietser" album was released in 1973. This album became a major commercial success, boasting the token single included therein, "Jimmy". For the first time in many years, Boudewijn rejoined Lennaert Nijgh - resulting in another successful collaboration. In 1975, he celebrated his 10th anniversary in the business with the retrospective and autobiografic LP, "Waar Ik Woon En Wie Ik Ben". The record was produced with the help of the former Movie Academy mate Renee Daalder. Around this time, Boudewijn stated in an interview that he does not have the right kind of relationship with Lennaert Nijgh in order to write the kind of deep, personal songs, which were included on that record.
In 1976, Boudewijn travelled to the Amercan West Coast (together with Renee Daalder), to try his luck. This had long been a dream of his. In the meantime, as a result of his pioneering work as the authentic Dutch 'chanson' writer, he got himself a nice niche in that market; the most important examples of famous other artists successfully using his work in the '70s are Robert Long and de Groot-produced Rob de Nijs. After a year in America, De Groot returned to Holland and performed a series of concerts in Belgium, and in 1980 released his next album, "Van Een Afstand". This album contains the title song from the movie, "Een tip van de sluier", written by his brother-in-law Frans Bromet. Both the movie and the record, however, disappeared without a trace.
Although he continued to record with famous musicians, such as Hans Hollestelle, Jan Vermeulen, Peter Schon and Jan Rietman, commercially, his live album "Boudewijn in concert" (82) was a disappointment. The next release, "Bo de Groot" (83) was a Greatest Hits compilation of German versions of his famous hits. After 1984, Boudewijn de Groot became active mostly as a producer of movie soundtracks, and also starred in two musicals. He has also translated many Stephen King novels into Dutch. Both "Maalstroom" (84) and "Een Nieuwe Herfst" (96) were his attempts to make a comeback into the world of pop music. The set list at his concert at the Paradiso in Amsterdam in 1996 included all of his greatest hits to date - an overview of his career through the years. His sons Marcel and Jimmy are currently attempting to make their first imprints on the Dutch pop history.
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