Vidar Busk – The Norwegian King of Blues

Posted on September 3, 2015 by Per Ole Hagen

Vidar Busk has played blues professionally for almost two thirds of his life since he was sixteen years old. It has been a roller coaster with ups and downs during these thirty years. Musically he has always been sharp, and he has moved in and out of styles, from rockabilly and jump blues through New Orleans style music to soul, but the blues has always been there. These days he is back with his old band, His True Believers, and yesterday night they played at Rockefeller in Oslo.

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The Notodden Blues Festival – Opening Night With Vidar Busk, Dana Fuchs and Mike Zito and Samantha Fish

Posted on July 31, 2015 by Per Ole Hagen

Yesterday this year’s Notodden Blues Festival opened. The opening show was well attended, with 3-4000 people, and the evening had three acts – Vidar Busk, Dana Fuchs and Mike Zito and Samantha Fish. This was my 21st year at the festival, and this is one of the festivals I look forward to every year. (Photo above: Vidar Busk) Continue reading →

Notodden Blues Festival 2015 Coming Up

Posted on July 28, 2015 by Per Ole Hagen

Thursday, July 30th, The Notodden Blues Festival will open with artists like Robert Plant, George Thorogood, Shemekia Copeland, Beth Hart and many others. The festival has been my favorite blues festival for more than 20 years. Here are photos of some of the artists at this year’s festival while we are waiting for it to start. (Picture above: The audience to ZZ Top at Notodden in 2012)

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BluesNews and The Norwegian Blues Union 15 Year

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Per Ole Hagen

Rune Endal © Per Ole Hagen The Norwegian Blues Union and the magazine BluesNews celebrated their 15 year birthday yesterday. The party was held at Victoria Scene in Oslo with most of the best Norwegian blues artists during the last 40 years. (Picture: The editor of BluesNews, Rune Endal, and the leaders of the Norwegian Blues Union the last 15 years.)

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Another successful Blues weekend in Hell

Posted on September 9, 2012 by Per Ole Hagen

This year’s Blues In Hell is over, and it has been a great two days with good artists, good blues and friendly people from all over Norway. The festival is held some 20 miles east of Trondheim at a place called Hell, which means a shallow cave in old Norwegian. The headliners at the festival were The Original Blues Brothers, Johnny Hoy, Tommy Castro, Vidar Busk, Roy Rogers and Rory Block. (Above: Johnny Hoy and The Bluefish)

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The Notodden Blues Festival – Highlights from last year

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Per Ole Hagen

Thursday the 25th blues festival at Notodden starts, with headliners like ZZ Top, Paul Rodgers, Roomful Of Blues, Jonny Lang, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and many other great blues artists. Here are some of the artists from 2011 while we are counting down for this year’s festival. The winner of that year’s Blues Prize was Kid Andersen (picture above).