Voorkamerfest, Darling, Western Cape

Hannes Coetzee is the bomb!

Hannes, also known as Oom Hannie, is a softly spoken 70 year old, who when he is not making music, taps aloes for their medicinal juice in the mountains. Hannes learnt to play the guitar on the side of the hill when the aloes were too dry to tap, and practiced often to keep himself company on long, lonely nights in the mountains of the Kamiesberg.

Hannes composes his own songs. His right-hand finger picking style is called "optel en knyp" (pick up and pinch), and combined with his unique teaspoon slide technique, he ranks as one of the most unusual slide guitarists in the world. If you shut your eyes, you would think that there were two people accompanying each other on guitars.