Patricia & The Hearts of Soul

Biography

The Hearts of Soul were three sisters from Harderwijk: Bianca, Stella and Patricia. They were discovered in 1968 and started their careers as backing singers for a.o. Dusty Springfield. In 1969, they were the backings for Annet Hesterman in the Dutch national final for the Eurovision Song Contest, where she sang the song “Zoek het niet te ver”.
After a few ‘almost-hits’, they had their first and only hit in the Dutch charts, “Fat Jack”. At the same time, they were chosen to represent the Netherlands in the 1970 Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Waterman”. It caused some problems, because a 3 girl group was not allowed on stage in 1970. The solution was that Bianca and Stella were registered as backing vocals, so that the group now participated as Patricia & The Hearts of Soul. The follow up “It’s great fun” caught some attention and they had success among religious people with “Oh here Jezus”, a song they recorded with Marius Monkau. In 1973 they moved to Belgium, where Luc Smets joined the group in 1975 and they went on as Dream Express. They represented Belgium in the 1977 Eurovision Song Contest. Dream Express excisted until 1981. Bianca released a few records in the early 1980s. Stella went solo and represented Belgium in the 1982 Eurovision Song Contest. Patricia became a studio musician and was a backing vocal in Eurovision twice. She passed away 15 may 1996, aged 44.
In 2010, Stella, Bianca and another sister, Doreen, came together to perform as The Hearts of Soul.