Hootenanny Singers | |
|---|---|
 From left to right: Hansi Schwarz, Johan Karlberg, Björn Ulvaeus and Tonny Rooth. | |
| Background information | |
| Also known as | Westbay Singers, The Northern Lights, The Hooten Singers[1] |
| Origin | Västervik, Sweden |
| Genres |
|
| Years active | 1961–1974; 1979-present |
| Labels | |
| Members |
|
| Past members |
|
The Hootenanny Singers are a popular folk group from Västervik, Sweden, founded in 1961. The group included Björn Ulvaeus, who later became a member of ABBA. Other band members were Johan Karlberg (b. Karl Johan Hilding Karlberg, 14 April 1943, Vimmerby, Sweden d. 16 August 1992, Västervik, Sweden), Tonny Rooth (b. Sven Villy Tonny Rooth, 30 November 1943, Västervik, Sweden) and Hansi Schwarz (b. Hans Carl Schwarz, 16 March 1942, Munich, Germany d. 10 January 2013, Lund, Sweden). The group was named "The Northern Lights" for a US-released LP in 1966.
In 1964, they debuted on the Swedish TV programme Hylands Hörna with locally well-known Swedish poet Dan Andersson's "Jag väntar vid min mila" (translated as "I'm Waiting at the Charcoal Kiln").[2]
The band had an early hit in the song Gabrielle, based on the Russian song "May There Always Be Sunshine" by Arkady Ostrovsky. Due to a lack of international copyright agreements, songs from the Soviet Union were then considered to be in the public domain.[1] Stig Anderson and Bengt Bernhag, co-founders of the band's production company Polar Music, claimed credits for the song's arrangement and Swedish lyrics. Russian media sources would later describe this as plagiarism or theft.[3][need quotation to verify][4] After reaching number five on the Swedish charts, the band translated and recorded versions of Gabrielle in German, Finnish, Italian, Dutch, and English.[1]
Their extensive touring of Swedish outdoor concert venues brought them fame and they 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. Tonny Rooth and Björn Ulvaeus are the two surviving members of the band's original line-up. Some of the tracks on the 1969 album På tre man hand were released as solo singles by Björn Ulvaeus.
