Beeb Birtles

Infobox musical artist
Name = Beeb Birtles


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Birth_name = Gerard Bertelkamp
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Born = birth date and age|1948|11|28
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Instrument = Vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar
Genre = Pop music, soft rock
Years_active = 1966 - present
Label = Columbia, RCA, EMI, Capitol, MCA, Universal, Sonic Sorbet
Associated_acts = Zoot
Mississippi
Little River Band
Birtles Shorrock Goble
URL = [http://www.birtles.com birtles.com]

Beeb Birtles (born Gerard Bertelkamp, 28 November 1948, in Amsterdam, Netherlands), is a Dutch / Australian musician, most famous as one of the founding members of the Little River Band.

His parents emigrated to Australia with Bertelkamp in 1957, settling in Adelaide. He discovered a passion for music while in high school. During his high school days, he was nicknamed "BB Eyes," after a "Dick Tracy" character, which shortly thereafter became "BB". After high school, he formed his first band, Zoot, moving to Melbourne. At this time, he adopted his professional name; bandmate Darryl Cotton shortened his nickname to "Beeb," and he Anglicized the first two syllables of his legal surname to "Birtles."

Zoot broke up in 1971, and Birtles and Cotton performed together as Frieze for a year. Then, in 1972, Birtles was asked to join the band Mississippi, which like Zoot had moved from Adelaide to Melbourne. After Mississippi disbanded in 1975, band members Birtles, Graeham Goble, and Derek Pellicci, recruited Glenn Shorrock and Rick Formosa, plus manager Glenn Wheatley, and formed the Little River Band.

After a run of major international success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Birtles left the Little River Band (LRB) in 1983. In the meantime, he had married the former Donna Brucks, an American who was the assistant to LRB's booking agent, in 1979. They settled in Melbourne and eventually had two daughters, Hannah and Emmie. During this period Birtles produced a number of albums, including the Steve Grace record Children Of The Western World, the first Australian Christian artist album to be certified gold.

In 1992, Birtles moved to the U.S. with his wife and children. They briefly settled in Donna's hometown of Jefferson City, Missouri before moving to Nashville, Tennessee, where he and his wife still live (both daughters have since graduated from college in the U.S.). In 1998 Birtles and Bill Cuomo established Sonic Sorbet, a music production company. Sonic Sorbet has produced albums for a number of recording artists, including Birtles first solo album "Driven by Dreams", released in 2000.

Birtles continues to write music, and performs with Goble and Shorrock as Birtles Shorrock Goble: The Original Voices of the Little River Band.

External links

* [http://www.birtles.com Official site] (article adapted from this site)