Sustaining power of music
‘This is my discipline. I can sleep on the mountain, but I have this’
AN ELDERLY homeless man has walked a personal and independent path all his life, following his deep love for the arts, especially music.
Born in 1950 on a farm in Beaufort West, Riaan Burger has had a life much more varied and unconventional than most.
At the age of eight, he had to leave his home town for Cape Town with his mother and his three brothers after his father’s death.
It was in the Mother City that he developed an interest in music and theatre, martial arts and trapeze, which has occupied most of his adult life.
“I began to do trapeze when I was 19, I worked with Billy Smart’s Circus and Circus Bush Rolland in Europe,” he said.
After the European tour Burger returned to South Africa in the late 1990s to “focus on the music”.
Burger said he has always been inspired by music.
“I come straight from the 60s, I find my inspiration in Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and people like that.”
As an autodidact, Burger taught himself to sing in English and Afrikaans and to play the guitar.
His talent was recognised by Murray Anderson, and Trevor Steele Taylor Milestone Studios has produced four of his albums with about 150 songs. Burger is said to have the ability to make listeners experience love, and in turn be hypnotised by it.
“You must listen straight from the beginning, it’s like a journey… It is an international understanding,” he said.
Burger’s albums were recently published on the website bandcamp.com.
Unfortunately Burger has not been able to live off the music he produces.
To buy bread he paints portraits of visitors in Hout Bay.
“I go from day to day. All the people have a house but me, I have nothing.
“I have only this. This is my discipline. I can sleep on the mountain, but I have this.”
To listen to Burger’s music, visit his website: https:// riaanburger.bandcamp.com/