Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.10.2013, Page 22

Music | History
Chapter 3 | Blue Eyed Pop
Dr. Gunni—Iceland's eminent scholar of
rock and pop music—is finally coming
out with the long-promised English lan-
guage version of his super educational,
super detailed treatise on the history
of Icelandic popular music. The book
leaves no stone unturned and is a must-
read for any serious fan of Icelandic
music, providing context and history to
all those hot young rock bands you guys
like so much, adding understanding and
appreciation.
'Blue Eyed Pop - The History of
Popular Music in Iceland' is set to
hit bookstores at the end of the month,
but in the meantime the good doctor
has graciously offered us the chance
to print a chapter from the book. Read
on to learn about how rock 'n' roll first
hit Iceland's shores and fascinated the
nation... then read a bit further for our
conversation with Gunni, which was as
educational as you would expect.
22The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 16— 2013
The history of popular music pre-rock ‘n’ roll is of course rich and ripe with development and grand ideas. However, rock music just seemed
so revolutionary when it appeared on the scene that ev-
erything that came before it was weighed against it, and
was almost outdated on the spot. Rock ‘n’ roll was the
spanking, shiny new plaything. Rock music defined
a group of consumers, teenagers, who sprang out fully
formed as a particular target market, a hitherto un-
known demographic that was ripe for the tapping. Rock
music also brought forth a severe generation gap, as it
mostly appealed to the younger generation. Before rock,
most age groups were on the same boat when it came
to popular music—mom, grandma and the kids would
listen to the same artists and dance the same dances.
Powerful and primitive
In Iceland, news of this exciting new form of music
spread fast. In December of 1955, one Dean Bowling,
an American soldier on leave from the Keflavík base,
became the very first person to sing rock music in Ice-
land. He appeared with Carl Billich’s band at an Íslenskir
tónar revue and sang “Rock Around the Clock,” “Shake,
Rattle and Roll” and a few more early rock songs. People
liked what they heard, but this appearance had a limited
impact.
When rock music was first played on the state radio
station, it was to a much greater effect. It was beloved
singer Haukur Morthens who first blasted rock ‘n’ roll
over the Icelandic airwaves at his weekly radio show,
early in 1956. A foresighted stewardess had brought him
Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” single, suggesting he
play it in his show. Haukur obliged. “It sounded so un-
worldly and crass. So much beat, so much jabber. Today
it sounds just easy and cosy,” Haukur would comment
thirteen years later, in an interview with the magazine
Vikan. The kids loved what they heard, but legend has
it that in Höfn í Hornarfir!i, a farmer suffered a heart
attack spurred by Elvis sounding through his radio.
Soon larger doses of rock ‘n’ roll were played on the
radio, much to the dismay of many. “This filthy Ameri-
can noise will spoil the youth,” the cultural elite would
say, adding: “Thankfully, rock music is just a bubble that
will burst soon enough.” Besides getting their dose of
rock from Icelandic state radio, kids living in the south-
west corner of Iceland could tune in to the US naval base
radio and hear brand new rock tunes amid songs from
respectable performers such as Frank Sinatra, Bing
Crosby and the Andrews Sisters.
As was customary, it was down to merchant sailors to
bring in the good stuff. “A sailor who lived in downtown
Keflavík would blast rock ‘n’ roll out of his window,” said
Rúnar Júlíusson, future member of the main beat band,
Hljómar. “This is where I first heard rock music; Little
Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and especially Chuck Berry re-
ally fired me up. This sounded so powerful, yet so primi-
tive. This was not like anything I had heard before.”
Early American rock ‘n’ roll films were shown in
Reykjavík’s theatres as early as 1957. ‘Rock Around the
Clock,’ featuring Bill Haley and The Platters among oth-
ers, was the most influential of those, almost causing a
riot in the cinema when it was shown—as it had done in
various other European cities.
But watching a film was nothing compared to the
real thing. The first rock ‘n’ roll combo in Reykjavík was
performed in 1957 by Tony Crombie and his Rockets.
Tony was a British drummer and a former jazzist who
had jumped on the rock bandwagon. His band staged a
convincing rock show night after night at the Austurbæ-
jarbíó cinema, having performed in front of estimated
total of ten thousand Icelanders when their stint ended.
Sometimes the police were brought in to calm down rock
crazy teens that danced in the aisles and even outside the
cinema after the show was over.
The kids go for it
Icelandic musicians at the time, most of them jazz fans,
didn’t like this new fad at all. Some of them had gone to
see Tony Crombie and his crew play. They didn’t like the
music, but were thrilled by the amount of gear on stage
and thrown back by the sheer volume of the music. “This
is crap music, if you can call it music at all,” the jazzists
would say, yet they were forced to play “the crap” because
the kids and the young audience liked it so much. Rock
‘n’ roll was all they asked for at the dancehalls. Elabora-
tion and professionalism were the values musicians
worked by, and they had a hard time grasping manic,
cathartic venting that came along with rock music.
Those who fell for the fresh and powerful music
were kids born around 1940. Their foreign role mod-
els were swank rock and pop singers (the beat groups
would come into vogue later in the ‘60s). Therefore no
rock groups were formed in Iceland in the wake of rock’s
surging popularity. Instead, the rock-crazed kids got to
appear on stage with the existing dance bands and sing
a few songs. At other times, special shows were staged
where up to twenty young singers got to sing a song each.
The best of those kids kept at it, and some even went on
to release records.
As early as 1956, rock music began to appear on the
dance bands programmes, although none of them spe-
cialised in the new fad. Gigs were held in the day during
weekends, or started early in the evening on weekdays.
Like a karaoke of sorts, young guests could come up on
stage and sing a tune with the band. This form of con-
cert got very popular, and up and coming singers could
gradually overcome their shyness this way. Those who
performed best and had the most authentic style were
given more opportunities, others dropped out quickly.
Eighteen-year-old "orsteinn Eggertsson was so con-
vincing in his rock ‘n’ roll fury that Haukur Morthens
dubbed him “The Icelandic Elvis.” "orsteinn kept it real,
steered clear of any soppy shit, sticking to rock and roll
exclusively while fostering serious lyrical ambitions.
Coming from Keflavík, right by the Army base, he had
a better grasp of English than most of his peers. Later
he was quoted in an interview saying: “The radio signal
was bleary back then, and one didn’t hear but a bit of
what Elvis was singing. The other kids repeated his lyr-
ics just like parrots, in a pidgin language, which I found
disgraceful. Instead, I started making my own lyrics in
Icelandic to sing to those rock songs.”
He would later take over vocal duties for the KK Sex-
tet, a gig that lasted six months. Joining the KK Sextet
was the ultimate dream for singers at the time. "orste-
inn’s rock fury was unfortunately never captured on re-
cord at the time, but throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s he was
Iceland’s major rock lyricist, penning some great lyrics,
often in deep disdain of the ruling cultural elites.
Siggi Johnnie was another one who “got” the whole
rock thing. He sang all
around town with vari-
ous dance bands, and
joined the first band to
feature only young rock
enthusiasts after their
original singer, Gu!-
bergur Au!unsson, had
left. The band was called
Fimm í fullu fjöri (“The Fully Alive Five”), a name that
was to be taken as a shot at the old brigade. In 1959, they
were the only real rock band in Iceland.
“I booked the band at clubs at the US base,” Siggi
says. “At the time, these were the best gigs available
and we got paid five times more than we got for gigs in
Reykjavík.” The fences surrounding the Mi!neshei!i
base were a gateway to a different world, one filled with a
tantalizingly foreign atmosphere and various unknown
pleasures. Besides more money, gigs at the base meant
access to all kinds of rare luxuries: American candy,
hamburgers and, of course, beer, which for some odd
reason that no one could remember had been prohibited
in Iceland since 1918 (and would remain so until 1989).
“At this time we mulled over the American forces radio
broadcast with a tape recorder,” says Siggi. “When some-
thing new came on, we learnt it and were able to play it
the next day. I wrote down the lyrics, but I wasn’t fluent
in English and really did not have much of a clue what
Gene Vincent, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and those
guys were singing about. I just wrote down the sounds
and tried my best to imitate it. Our American audience
didn’t seem to mind that I was basically just sputtering
nonsense.”
Banned songs
The Icelandic record industry’s initial attempts with rock
were fumbled at best. Pop singers were given slightly
“rock-ish” songs to sing; sometimes the only indication
of them being of the genre was the word “rock” being
repeated throughout the song. The first rock song was
Erla "orsteinsdóttir’s “Vagg og velta” (an unsuccess-
ful attempt to translate “Rock and roll”), a cover of Bill
Haley’s “The Saints Rock ‘n’ Roll.” (that being a rockin’
rehash of the standard “When The Saints Come March-
ing In”). The Icelandic lyrics by Loftur Gu!mundsson
shocked many, as Loftur recycled verses by Icelandic ma-
jor poets of yore and “soaked them in frivolity and pure
nonsense,” as one of many outraged letters to the editor
read: “What is sacred to these people!?!”
The song was banned from radio, and copies of the
record were smashed on air. It wasn’t the first to be black-
listed by Icelandic state radio; at least two songs had re-
ceived that treatment before: “Vorvísa” by revue singer
and impersonator Hallbjörg Bjarnadóttir—because it
was an old poem by Jón Thoroddsen that Hallbjörg had
written a jazzy tune to, and that was absolutely unaccept-
able, and “Kaupakonan hans Gísla í Gröf” by Haukur
Morthens because the lyrics contained a few nonsensical
words. Needless to say, the central figures at the state ra-
dio station were very conservative at the time, and really
protective of Icelandic culture and language.
Erla "orsteinsdóttir was far from being a rock ‘n’
roller. She was a cute and cosy soft pop singer who barely
moved on stage, having just returned from Denmark
where she lived for a period and made a name for herself
as “The Icelandic Lark.” Shortly after the release of her
banned song, Erla went on a tour of Iceland with Haukur
Morthens, where she often got scolded by angry audi-
ence members for singing the indecent song. The single
sold well, however—getting your song banned from ra-
dio usually makes for good record sales.
Singer and drummer Skapti Ólafsson was the first to
properly nail this new rock thing. He recorded six rock
songs between 1957 and 1958 that all sounded pretty
convincing. The biggest hit of these was “Allt á floti”
(“Everything’s Soaked”)—an Icelandic version of “Wa-
ter, Water” by the UK’s first rocker, Tommy Steele. This
song was yet another that was banned from the radio,
presumably because radio personnel thought it included
hidden sexual messages. Of course this made for the
best publicity possible, and the single sold like crazy.
Eventually Skapti was able to buy a refrigerator with the
income from the single.
“Just put nylon socks on your heads!”
Yet another young rock dude was the chummy Stefán
Jónsson. His first claim to fame was being part of the
SAS Trio. The trio did an Icelandic cover version of The
Coasters’ “Charlie Brown,” which was released by Stjör-
“Eighteen-
year-old "or-
steinn Eg-
gertsson was
so convincing
in his rock
‘n’ roll fury
that Haukur
Morthens
dubbed him
‘The Icelandic
Elvis!”
Icelanders Get All
Excited About Rock ‘n’ Roll
By Dr. Gunni
Ómar Ragnarsson mid-air doing
his original stuff in 1962.
Photo: Ingimundur Magnússon / ReykjavÌk Museum of Photography.