“but now I am somebody else
with golden books upon my shelves
and diamonds on my mind
strolling through the woods at night
to find the little bits of light
others leave behind”

The first song I ever heard from this guy was titled “Once I was a Lady”. I thought the title a bit weird but it was on a freebie CD I had gotten from a magazine I respected as a student for its experimental/indie/underground attitude so I gave it a listen. This guy got me with his voice (as a singer should) and his lyrics got me more so – beautiful, allegorical and full of imagery and metaphor. But it was the peculiar tone of the song that got me most. It was austere yet poignant. Out of the ordinary and interesting. And I’ve been a fan ever since.

I’ve since found that his real name is Otto Fons Wichers and that the stage name, according to his official site, is a mix of this real name as well as an ‘obscure royal connection’. This blonde, odd looking, but strangely handsome young man was born in the Netherlands, and was a college kid at the University of Amsterdam when he recorded his first album. This turned out to be one of three self-released albums. The first untitled with a scraggly looking young man on the cover (after which he won the Grote Prijs van Netherland), a little later another titled ‘Life Is Short’ with a picture of a tall, skinny and bent over backwards Lucky and a blue wall as a background. He later released ‘a family like yours’ with the cover featuring him, short haired and all suited up. All three are copyrighted to his very own My Street Is Mine/Pias label.

He has a string quintet called the Lucky Orchestra though he’s seldom seen with them and mostly does solo performances, sometimes as a one-man-band with acoustic guitar in hand and a mouth organ around his neck. I’ve never seen him live but you can tell he’s an entertainer, lively and jovial, so you’d never for a second regret seeing him.

His earlier work was all in English (Lucky Fonz III, Life Is Short, A Family Like Yours) but he later decided to make a full Dutch album (Hoe Je Honing Maakt) but you’ll find a few lines in English here and there. This album and the single ‘Ik Heb Een Meisje’ were released by Netherland based Top Notch and distributed by independent music distributers MGM Distribution (which stand for Metropolitan Groove Merchants).

Heres a list of his albums:
  • Lucky Fonz III, 2005
  • Life is short, 2007
  • A family like yours, 2009
  • Hoe je honing maakt, 2010