Hootenanny Singers


The Hootenanny Singers were a popular folk group from Sweden, founded in 1961. The group included Björn Ulvaeus, who later was a member of ABBA. Other bandmembers were Johan Karlberg, Tony Rooth and Hansi Schwarz. The group was named "The Northern Lights" for an American-released LP in 1966.

Early debut

In 1964, they debuted on the Swedish TV programme Hylands Hörna with locally famous Swedish poet Dan Andersson's "Jag väntar vid min mila". The song "Gabrielle" became an international hit song in 1964, translated and performed by the group in Swedish, German, Finnish, Italian, Dutch, and English. However, they extracted the tune from the Russian song "May There Always Be Sunshine" by Arkady Ostrovsky, who was never credited.

Later career and death

They were famous for the amount of touring of the Swedish outdoor concert venues and had numerous hit singles on the Svensktoppen chart. Their biggest hit was "Omkring tiggarn från Luossa", which broke the record by spending 52 weeks on Svensktoppen between 26 November 1972 and 18 November 1973. Johan Karlberg dropped out of the band in the late 1960s to take over his father's business. Karlberg died in 1992. Hansi Schwarz was also the leader of the Västervik folk ballad festival for many years. Schwarz died in 2013. To date, Tonny Rooth and Björn Ulvaeus are the two surviving members of the original line-up of the band. Some of the tracks on the 1969 album På tre man hand were released as solo singles by Björn Ulvaeus.

Discography

Albums