The Beginning

Ilse Annoeska de Lange was born in Almelo, the Netherlands, on May 13th 1977. She was the third child of Joop de Lange and Carla de Lange-Alfink, their first and only daughter.

Even at a very young age, Ilse was taken to country music shows by her parents. They found out that Ilse really liked to sing and perform. Quite early on, they noticed that she also had a talent for it. They allowed Ilse to take part in talent scouts and playback shows. Aged eight, Ilse won her first playback show, which was organised by her primary school. She won many more contests play backing "Wat Ruist Er Door Het Struikgewas", originally performed by a Dutch comedian named Toon Hermans, wearing her father’s wedding suit.

By the age of ten, she was already a regular on stages across the country. Given her rather boyish looks back then, she decided to participate in an audition for the musical "Les Misérables", in which she wanted to play the role of Gavroche. However, puberty was a spoilsport. Within a year, Ilse grew up to be a young woman, which made it rather difficult to play the role of a boy. Even though she was praised for her singing, this made it impossible for her to play this part eventually.

Missing this particular part motivated her even more to take part in as many talent scouts as possible, everywhere in the country. With live singing instead of playback, she went to many local and regional events and reached the preliminary rounds of the "Soundmix Show", a Dutch TV program. It appeared that country music was her main influence. The first song Ilse ever sung live on stage was "Paper Roses", originally by Marie Osmond. By the age of 14, she had already been in numerous TV shows.

At this age, Ilse met Joop van Liefland, a Dutch guitar player. He taught her the ropes of playing the acoustic guitar and soon they shared the stage together. They played mainly at country events.

Ever since she was twelve, Ilse was a good friend of the Dutch singer songwriter and radio host Ruud Hermans, with whom she also started to sing duets. In the course of years, the contact with Ruud intensified, as did the contact with Ruud’s radio producer Jan de Jong. Ilse was a regular guest in their KRO studio to sing her songs, either alone, with Ruud or, later on, with her first band: Cash On Delivery.

The members of Cash On Delivery were Ilse DeLange, Michael Hamane, Johan Jansen, Ad Welten, Loek van Heijster and Wim van der Vliert. In April 1998, this band won an award for ‘most promising act’ at the 1998 Dutch Country Music Awards. However, before 1998 many other things had happened as well.

When Ilse was 17 years old she met Kees de Haan of a Dutch music company called Crossroads. He arranged for Ilse to open shows in tours of numerous Canadian artists that were booked through Crossroads. Also, Ilse got to play at the Dutch Country Music Awards and DCMA promo events several times.

Crossroads became Ilse’s first booking agency and enabled her to record a professional demo in Canada. It was this demo that caught the attention of Menno Timmerman, who offered her a record deal. However, Ilse declined the offer, saying she wasn’t ready for a record deal yet.

Live performance of Ilse DeLange's first hit I'm not so tough!