Hits From The Heartland

For over 32 years, radio producer Camille Janszen has presented the new country program ‘Hits from the Heartland’.
The first episodes of Hits From The Heartland were broadcast in 1986 by Digitaal HIT FM, a tolerated pirate station in Baarn that existed until 1989 and has proven to be a breeding ground for DJs and program makers in Hilversum.

Around the mid-1980s, a clear renewal in country music came about in the United States. Established names such as Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton and Waylon Jennings had to give way to a new generation of artists, of which George Strait, The Judds, Randy Travis and later Garth Brooks were the most important.

The rural Midwest of the United States is often called ‘The Heartland’ by the inhabitants themselves and that is how the name for this Country program came about: Hits From The Heartland, in which the style increasingly shifted towards the new trend in country music.

In the 32 years that Hits From The Heartland has existed, new country music has become increasingly popular with large parts of the population, the program meets a need and has proven to be a permanent fixture in the (country) radio landscape. Thirty radio stations and internet streams in the entire Dutch language area (including Flanders and the Caribbean part of the Netherlands) and Spain that broadcast Hits From The Heartland weekly and a weekly podcast are proof of this.

This radio program focuses on items such as the ‘Country Classic’ and ‘Nashville Now’ with news from Music City USA.
In ‘Spotlight On’ there is a mini-special about a country group, singer or female singer every week.

At the beginning of the second hour, Camille Janszen announces the new ‘Mighty Roadroller’. Furthermore, the latest item is: ‘The Dutch Barn’ or contemporary country from our own soil. Finally, you can also count on an overview of the Billboard Country Airplay Top 10.

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Hits From The Heartland

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Dj

Camille Janszen

Music has been an essential part of my life almost from birth. As the son of a sound editor and saxophonist, music was instilled in me from birth. During my primary school years, I was often confined to bed because of asthma and I listened to the offshore radio stations a lot. Due to lack of money, I had been given an old tube radio and when the DJ started talking, I pressed the on/off button and announced the next record myself. The printed copy of the Top 40 was in front of me, so I knew which record was coming. I soon made my first programs and was asked to provide the music at school parties.

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