Description
DEAR VIRUD – VIRUD SINGS VIOLENCE WRITES DYLAN (1977)
Vocalist, guitarist, lyricist and composer from Notodden, often referred to as Norway's foremost blues ambassador. Kåre Virud was the first to perform the American music style blues with Norwegian lyrics, and one of the few who has managed to make Bob Dylan sound Norwegian. Kåre Virud grew up surrounded by music. His aunt played guitar and his uncle played the violin, and inspired by what he heard on Radio Luxembourg, he began playing guitar. Before he was 20, he went to sea, and in the Japanese city of Kobe he bought his first proper guitar. His band career began with the somewhat misplaced role of vocalist in a shadows band. This was followed by a short stay at the Music Conservatory in Oslo, before he went to Copenhagen towards the end of the 60s. Here he discovered blues music, and after hearing an LP by Paul Butterfield, he started his own blues band. Central to Kåre Virud's entire musical career is his enthusiasm for Bob Dylan. It was Dylan who gave Virud the confidence that he could write songs himself, and there is much to suggest that Dylan is the most important individual in Kåre Virud's musical career. Kåre Virud got a contract with the record company RCA after a concert at Høvikodden in 1974. With Popol Vuh as a backing band, Virud made the first blues album with Norwegian lyrics – Barbeinte engel (1974). In addition to the blues, the album contained old rock songs (“Smokey Joe's Café” became “Ola Tungs Kafé”, “Johnny B. Goode” became “Ola E. God”) and musical settings of poems by Tor Jonsson and Bertolt Brecht. Dylan was represented with “Mamma, jeg har tink på deg” (“Mama, You've Been On My Mind”). Producers for this historic recording were Harald Are Lund, Arne Schulze and Pål Andersen. The following year, Virud was ready with a new album, Vår daglig blues, this time with Ingar Helgesen as co-producer. The album opened with Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" in Norwegian, "Ei ny tid er i emning", and the rest of the content was characterized as much by progressive folk rock as by blues. In parallel with these albums, Virud worked as a musician in a dance band. Six days a week he played at dances, which he himself believes was a good school. A meeting with Jan Erik Vold led to two milestones in Norwegian music; Virud sings Vold skriver Dylan (1977) and Stein.Regn (1981). Virud heard through friends that Vold was in the process of giving Dylan a Norwegian language costume in a new book for the Norwegian Book Club. He made contact, and this led to both a concert tour and a recording session. Eleven of the songs from the book Damer i regn (70 songs in Norwegian by Jan Erik Vold) were recorded and released as Virud's third LP, produced by Svein Gundersen. Around the same time, Virud started the band Telemark Blueslag. The album Stein. Regn was recorded with this band, and here Jan Erik Vold also got involved with both reading and singing. The cover was completely in line with some of Dylan's absurd lyrics; it showed a cartoon with the magician Mandrake, where the speech bubbles consisted of the text for "Ladies in the Rain" ("Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35"). The producer of the album was Harald Are Lund.
1 Quinn the Eskimo (Quinn The Eskimo)
2 It Ain't Me, Babe
3 Dear Long Distance Operator
4 Just Like A Woman
5 I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
6 Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
7 Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
8 On The Road Again
9 One Too Many Mornings
10 Blowin' In The Wind
11 Anytime Now (I Shall Be Released)