Description
ISBN: 9788293039860
On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Norwegian emigration to America, Roy Lønhøiden invites you on a personal and moving journey – from dusty small towns in Texas to the silent forests of Finnskogen and Innlandet. Through stories, photographs and reflections, Lønhøiden documents a life in and with music. Inspired by legends such as Hank Williams, Townes Van Zandt and Hans Børli, he shares stories from a life on the road – and about the way home again.
Many who emigrated traveled without knowing what they were going for, and never returned. One of the things that has bound people together across the Atlantic has been music. As country music became a major commercial industry after the war, it came to Norway in full force. Often with sailors, who had brought a few singles with them in their "sacks" - with Hank Williams and other greats from that time.
Roy Lønhøiden, artist, songwriter, writer and photographer now residing in Finnskogen, has traveled and lived in America for several years from the 90s, and has both studied and played this music for a number of years, learning from and playing with American songwriters and top musicians, both in the studio and on stage.
Lønhøiden has almost the opposite emigration story - a Norwegian artist and craftsman who went to America for several years to learn his craft - but found that to succeed as a songwriter he had to return to Finnskogen and write in Norwegian.
He has collected and written stories and taken his own photos during his formative journeys over several years. This will be a book that takes you on a journey with beautiful pictures from America and Finnskogen, with anecdotes and stories about family and growing up in the Inland and Finnskogen, and about musical and artistic role models (from Hank Williams, Townes van Zandt, Billy Joe Shaver to Hans Børli and Stein Ove Berg, among others). With personal reflections and life wisdom through a life as a searching person for truth and honesty, and to find the key to the songwriting mystery.
Everyone has a song that is the soundtrack to their own life. It came early, it often came by chance. But it stuck. The one song that has been with them all the way. It has been said that "a three-minute song can say more than a novel of several hundred pages". The first song formulated who you were, what you dreamed of and perhaps defines who you have become?