The Real Group and the Swedish music miracle
Written by Johan Scherwin
written for the occasion of a TRG concert at Philharmonie Luxemburg in June 18, 2009; a concert that celebrated Sweden's chairmanship of the European Union.
The Real Group, Sweden’s number one A Cappella group, are celebrating their silver jubilee. Like a rainbow, their repertoire stretches from World and folk music over pop and rock to the field of classical music.They are bringing an extra Swedish repertoire to Philharmonie Luxembourg. Their list of songs includes their own material and famous songs that aren’t automatically recognized as being Swedish. What about a medley of hits like “Toxic”, “Oops I did it again”, “That´s the way” and “Show me love”! These are songs you normally associate with international names like Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, Celine Dion and Robyn. In fact they are all by the songwriter Max Martin, who is – that’s right – Swedish. There is also room here for the “extremely Swedish”, e.g. the well-known folk song ”Uti vår hage”, that can turn any hard-boiled punk rocker into a tearful wimp.
“The mix of genres may seem a bit rough but isn’t disturbing”, says Katarina Henryson, alto in The Real Group and a member since the start in 1984.
In an A Cappella-group, the singing – the actual sound – takes over. It doesn’t really matter if you mix radically different things like Mozart with a Duke Ellington song. When a group of singers start singing, a programme that looks messy or uninteresting on paper turns into an organic unity.
During the course of their 25 years, The Real Group have given thousands of concerts all over the world. The group has also collaborated closely with the Swedish entertainment icon Povel Ramel, an unusual figure who could be described as a cross between the pianist and entertainer Victor Borge and the stand-up comedian Eddie Izzard.
For the past couple of years, The Real Group have also been artistic leaders for a vocal group festival in South Korea. They have held an A Cappella festival in Sweden’s fifth city, Västerås, and attracted groups from twenty-two countries, among those Brazil and Iceland. They are also working on broadening their international activities, not least through workshops where they teach new generations of singers. In the autumn there will be a new CD featuring only their own material that is often tainted with world music, which suits their sound well, according to Katarina Henryson.
The fact that a country with such a small population as Sweden can produce so many internationally successful artists has intrigued many. In The Real Group’s case, success wasn’t an accident. It is simply about a great mix between undeniable talent, a piece of luck, years of hard work and not least the opportunity of developing their sound in peace and quiet for a few years.
The five original members all attended the Adolf Fredrik’s Singing classes (choral school) in Stockholm. In 1984 the three gentlemen decided to form a quintet and for that they needed “a few women who could sing”. The great source of inspiration was Manhattan Transfer, the Swedish sextet Gals & Pals and above all Bobby McFerrin’s rhythmic singing and his desire to “make sounds”.
A couple of years later when most of the members of the group had moved on and had finished their first years at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, they hatched an idea the school couldn’t refuse. For a two-year period, the group attended a tailor-made training programme. Together.
“We rehearsed four days a week. On the fifth day we had a guest teacher we had chosen ourselves. We could choose a singer, a teacher or a choreographer, almost anybody as long as we thought they had something to offer. It was a really good laboratory!”
Today The Real Group consists of altos Katarina Henryson and Anders Edenroth, tenor Peder Karlsson, bass Anders Jalkéus and the new soprano Emma Nilsdotter, who, coming from a pop and rock environment, doesn’t share the same background as the others. For the past ten years she has been part of the international elite among pop and rock singers who are heard but not seen. She sings on CDs by Britney Spears, Geri Halliwell, Christina Milian and Sophie Ellis Bexter. Her different singing style contributes to expanding the sound of the group. Together they are now moving away from classical music to “jazzy-goes-pop and song”.
The Real Group is a good if not extreme example of the model behind the Swedish music miracle. Since the 1950s, innumerable children and youths have been able to take music lessons at “Kommunala musikskolan” (the municipal music school). For very little money or none at all, anybody may learn an instrument, take lessons and play in groups thus gaining a solid base for life-long music making. It has given Sweden several good instrumentalists and singers. Kommunala musikskolan has been a meeting place all these years for young people who want to start groups – and try their own expression.
There are more supporting columns holding up the Swedish music miracle. Sweden got through the war unscathed and didn’t need to spend vast amounts of money building everything up again. The nation could instead race ahead in fifth gear and invest in education: music and the new international language, English. This gave Sweden a head start.
For a long time, Sweden was one of Europe’s richest countries and the living standard allowed for a high level of private consumption. People could afford things and this meant that Hagström’s could expand all over the country.
Originally, Hagström’s was a mail order firm that sold accordions with the attached correspondence course. The accordion was the most popular instrument in Sweden during most of the 20th C. It was easier to bring to the barn dance than a piano.
Hagström’s expanded for a few decades and took over a number of music shops all over Sweden, like a franchise chain. The basic idea was to spread music, and this desire was greater than the ambition to earn money. This meant that many buyers could buy their instruments at great advantage on the never-never. When guitar pop had its break-through, Hagström’s soon caught on. They quickly developed their own guitar make, Hagströms, which was designed by the accordion builder of the firm. Unknowingly, they gave the instruments a very individual look by simply moving the square buttons and the mother-of-pearl details of the accordion to the solid body of the guitar. At the time they were excellent instruments, now they are collectors’ items all over the world.
At the beginning of the 60s there was thus an established music school and plenty of instruments to be bought. Then came The Beatles, taking the world by storm. Many youths followed their example and started not only their own groups, but also writing songs. Hep Stars were at the forefront of this movement. And in Hep Stars there was an organist called Benny Andersson (who had started off playing the accordion and was firmly rooted in Swedish folk music). He soon started writing songs for the group and delivered one hit song after the other for several years. Nobody suspected what he was about to achieve a few years later…
If you want to find the original and individual trait of Swedish pop music and jazz, you have to go further back than the 60s. Sweden is one of the rare European countries to stay out of the second world war. For six years, Sweden was isolated and Swedish musicians had to write their own music that soon bore the characteristics of folk music.
On the jazz front sat baritone saxophonist Lars Gullin who was the most obvious birch tree-smelling example and who even inspired the world famous Stan Getz. He was soon followed by pianist Jan Johansson who, in the 60s, interpreted Swedish folk music in a completely new way. In the wake of this, a national self-confidence resulted allowing musicians to find their own ways.
One of them was Benny Andersson. In 1974 his life changed completely. It was the year he won the Eurovision Song Contest together with the other ABBA members. The rest, as they say, is history. The most recent chapter is the unbelievably successful musical “Mamma Mia” that has conquered theatres and cinemas all over the world.
Referring to ABBA as an example and a role model, everybody realized that it was no longer impossible for Swedish musicians to break through internationally. This, naturally, applied above all to Swedish pop groups such as Roxette and Cardigans, The Hives and hard rock bands like Europe and Entombed, to name but a small handful.
Swedish jazz also started seriously finding its way abroad in the mid ‘70s. The first lot were musicians connected to ECM, the German record company. Pianist Bobo Stenson and bassist Palle Danielsson have belonged to the international elite ever since and have played with musicians such as the Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek, pianist Keith Jarrett and saxophonist Charles Lloyd.
The last ten years, the greatest jazz name beyond the shadow of a doubt was e.s.t., Esbjörn Svensson Trio. Slowly but surely the three members managed to distill a completely singular group sound that also allowed for individuality. Like none other they managed to blend jazz with pop and rock in a unique way: originality with the easily recognizable, integrity with commerciality. They were on the cover of the more than 60 years old American jazz magazine Down Beat, as the first non-American group or artist. They had the whole world at their feet when suddenly, pianist Esbjörna Svensson tragically died in a diving accident in the summer of 2008.
e.s.t. was actually at the top of an iceberg consisting of a number of Swedish artists and groups who are connected to the German record company ACT. Here, you find trombonist Nils Landgren, who is the artistic director of the greatest jazz festival in Germany, Berliner Jazztage, guitarist Ulf Wakenius who has been a member of the Oscar Petersen Quartet, the two singers Viktoria Tolstoy and Rigmor Gustafsson who perform more often in France and in Germany than in Sweden.
For the past years, there is a musician who has made the headlines more often than anybody else in Sweden. Saxophonist Jonas Kullhammar swept the Swedish scene like a hurricane at the beginning of the 2000s. During the past years he has built an empire in which the record company Moserobie has smashed all the theories about the final death of the record industry. With the do-it-yourself ideals of a punk, he has set an example and proven that almost anything is possible. Even starting his own music school for children and youths. It lays the foundation of a new generation of Swedish jazz and pop musicians.
Text: Johan Scherwin, Swedish freelance journalist who has been writing about music since the beginning of the 1980s.
Translation: Isabel Thomson
Comments
Still, I will always love you - just wanted to get my begging in as well!
Tusen tack för alla vackra musiken!
Carla
i hope you continue doing what you do and may God show you the way.