This year at Bergen Fest, Naomin Shelton was the unexpected positive experience to me, like Charles Bradley was at the Oya Festival last year. And intersting enough, both artists are signed to Daptone Records, the foremost record company for old-time soul after 2000.
I have a special respect for artists and musicians who transcend the borders between musical styles and who also make it hard for music librarians to categorize in an easy way. Jamie Cullum is such an artist, who moves between jazz and pop with no obvious difficulty. He is only 34 years old, but has been recording since he was 19, and playing publicly even before that.
In 2008 Shelby Lynne released the CD Just A Little Lovin’, her homage to Dusty Springfield, still one of the best British singers of all time. I saw Shelby Lynne do the songs from the CD at the Austin Music Hall during SXSW in 2008, and it is still one of my favourite albums.
Karpe Diem is the most successful Norwegian hip hop band. The started as a band in 2000, 16 years old. Since then they have won several prizes, sold many CDs and played sold out venues around Norway. Last weekend they were one of the headliners at the Steinkjer Festival.
I have written about Ida Jenshus before, so this will not be a word-heavy blog. She played the Steinkjer Festival last weekend, as the first act on the Saturday. The interesting thing is that Ida comes from Steinkjer, and with her success the last few years, one would expect the locals to come running to see her.
Aage Aleksandersen started out in the band Prudence in the late 60’s, and has been going on since then. The Prudence disbanded in 1975, after a period as one of the best Norwegian rock band – more like The Band than anything else. After this period, he started the band Sambandet as his backing band, went solo and started singing in Norwegian. Six years later his song Lys og varme (Light and Warmth) became an alternative national anthem, and Aage got the same status in Norway that Bruce Springsteen has in the US.
On Thursday this year’s Steinkjer Festival starts again with a night of local artists, before Friday comes with twelve concerts, and Saturday with eighteen including the day program. This will be my fifth festival in Steinkjer, and I am sure it will be just as good as the other ones. Here are some of the artists who are performing this year. I will of course come back with some new pictures after the festival. (Above: Ida Jenshus)
Susanne Sundfoer has been one of Norway’s most promising and interesting artists since she started out in 2006, 20 years old. She has won two Spellemann awards (the Norwegian Grammy), she has withdrawn herself from nominations, and she has released albums to rave reviews. Saturday June 15th she played at the Bergen Fest, and here are some pictures from that concert.
Lissie came on the music scene with a bang in 2010 with her single When I’m Alone, which was chosen as the song of the year by iTunes. The song was featured on her debut-CD, Catching A Tiger from he same year. Saturday she played at Bergen Fest in Norway, two years after her first visit to Norwegian festivals.
Last year was the first time I saw Charles Bradley at the Oya Festival in Oslo. I was amazed by his voice and also by hjs performance. His style is uniquely personal, but with strong influences from the Black Velvet man, James Brown. Today Charles Bradley played at Bergen Fest, and I realized I was right last year, he is unique!
Artist Pictures Blog 