Hearts of Soul

Dutch trio. Initially the sisters Bianca, Patricia and Stella Maessen, who also did session work. They were raised in Harderwijk (Gelderland) in the Netherlands but moved to Antwerp in Belgium when Bianca fell in love with Luc Smets, with whom they became Dream Express after first singing in his band Shampoo. A couple of years after the death of Patricia in 1996, the other sisters recruited Doreen (aka Dorien) and reignited the trio, which is also known as The New Hearts Of Soul.
There were 11 children in the Harderwijk family home, and their brothers had a band named The Blue Minstrels. According to Bianca, the sisters were discovered by Kees van Kooten performing in a club in Amsterdam, who tipped them of to production team behind 's Puntje Puntje Puntje TV show - which started their career in showbiz. Their father Jules was a Dutch soldier who had survived the Japanese camps in Indonesia. When their mother Dinah died in 1972, aged 43, he left the Dutch army and joined his daughters on the road, looking after them. He died in 1993 aged 69.