Monday, November 20, 2006

Homesick Seamen at Christmas


There are plenty of Christmas songs about Seamen longing to go home for Christmas.In fact they had an entire Radio Show for those at Christmas Eve where they played all these songs and presented greetings from their relatives. Here are some of my favourites. "Jul i främmande hamn" has been recorded with several artist. Erik Källquist (on the picture) that is singing on this one was actually a hairdresser. But he recorded many records as well and performed all over the country. For many years he made an annual Christmas Record. Those that can understand Swedish might notice that the girls they are inviting for a Christmas party in this song most certainly are prostitutes.

"Jul ombord" with Harry Persson is my second choice. He was a stage performance artist, as you might tell from his way of singing. In this case they are not in a warm and sunny country but in the middle of the Atlantic Sea, and the wind is pulling their gloves (according to the song).

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Christmas in the Wild West




In the 50ties Sweden was still a country were most people lived in the countryside, farming, working with animals etc. So when country music was discovered we felt at home. Cacka Israelsson was probably the first artist trying to sing country music in Swedish. He was not very good at english, as you can hear when he tries to sing e g Emily Fords old songs (later I will upload Cool Water). But most of his songs were in Swedish,as this song about celebrating Christmas in the Wild West, "Jul i vilda västern".
(By the way, the old links below should work, so try to download again if you missed some of the tracks I shared last Christmas. If you tried a couple of days ago try again, I found a hopefully better solution this morning.).