Cosmic tribute to Jerney Kaagman

This blog post starts off at a tangent, but bear with me: kites will feature a bit further down!

Earth & Fire was one of the most successful bands in the Netherlands throughout the 1970s. They had a string of hits in that decade, including two chart #1s ("Memories" and "Weekend"). The band broke up in 1983, followed by a brief return (and final album) in 1989.

The very first LP I ever bought as a (11 or 12 year old) boy, in the early 1970s, was one of Earth & Fire; I still have it!

Jerney Kaagman, the lead singer of Earth & Fire, passed away about a month ago, aged 79. 

Earth & Fire's music has been with me for more than 50 years now, and hearing of Jerney's passing really hit me. As the first band I ever bought music from, Earth & Fire always remained special to me. Also, I readily admit I had a big crush on Jerney as a young teenager in the 1970s (together with a high proportion of the Dutch male population then!). 

On to kites ... To try and channel my feelings upon hearing of Jerney's passing, I wanted to find an appropriate way to fly kites in her memory. Mentally going through our quiver of kites, looking for something that would 'fit', I came to our pair of Kitehouse Cosmic kites, one dark brown, one gold-orange. These seemed perfect for a 'Jerney tribute flight', with the brown Cosmic representing 'Earth' and the gold Cosmic 'Fire'.

The music we flew these Cosmics to was "Hazy Paradise", released in 1970 as the B-side to their first single ("Seasons"). No choreographed routine; simply fly, guided by the music.

In a couple of weeks time, we will be flying at Portsmouth Kite Festival, and, if circumstances allow, we intend to fly one of our routines to "Hazy Paradise", as a public tribute to Jerney Kaagman.

Jerney, RIP and thank you for more than half a century of music in my life.