Atlantica - 01.10.2006, Side 67

AT L A N T I CA 65
local movie theater in Skagaströnd for 15 years. He
could cram 50 people in at once. The building still
stands, but like the town’s streets pockmarked with
holes, begs for repair.
Hallbjörn fell in love with country music without
even knowing what it was. He grew up in a house
not far from where Kántrýbaer stands, an abode near
the sea where he was the youngest of 16. In 1939, the
year he was born, the town’s population was 200; his
family accounted for nearly 15 percent of it. One of
his older brothers, Hjörtur, played Johnny Cash and
Jim Reeves records ad infinitum.
“The music turned something in me,” Hallbjörn
says. “There was something in me that related to it.
Then I moved to Keflavík and my passion just kept
developing.”
In 1957, Hallbjörn packed a suitcase and moved to
Keflavík Naval Air Station, which after 55 years under
American operation will close this September. He
spent three years at Keflavík, during two of which he
lived on the base, where he worked various odd jobs,
including cooking, cleaning, and manual labor. As he
worked, he listened to the music that had migrated
via ships, planes, and word of mouth from America,
the lingering drawls of America’s then country west-
ern stars, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and Buck
Owens, among others.
He moved from Keflavík to Reykjavík in 1960,
where he worked in the reception of Hótel Vík by
day and sang with bands off and on by night while he
looked after his brother who “was always so drunk.”
Hallbjörn migrated back to Skagaströnd in 1963,
where he assumed the town’s unofficial title of social
chairman. For the next three years he put together
bands with which he toured – and entertained – most
of North Iceland. By age 40, he produced his first
album, Hallbjörn Sings His Own Songs (translated),
the first of ten, and in 1983, Hallbjörn Hjartarson’s
Kántrýbaer was born.
Walk up Kántrýbaer’s winding flight of stairs and
you find yourself so immersed in Hallbjörn memo-
rabilia that it feels like underwater asphyxiation.
Enclosed in glass cases on the walls are two of his
most outrageous, and perhaps cheesiest, costumes,
including a white leather jacket with fringe and
another jacket made of dark blue velvet and silver
sequins. Hanging from the wall’s wooden panels are
black and white photographs of Hallbjörn as a kid,
and framed album posters of him in his pet cowboy
hat. Grey hair has replaced what was once a long,
dark mane.
Also on the second floor of Kántrýbaer is
Hallbjörn’s studio, where he can be found nearly
60 hours a week sitting in a leather office chair sur-
rounded by more than 1,600 CDs and 500 records.
His radio station, which he started 14 years ago and
plays on frequencies 96.7, 102.1, and 107.0, can be
heard from Blönduós to Akureyri and even across
the sound to some coastal areas of the West Fjords.
“He listened to the music that had
migrated via ships, planes
and word of mouth
from America...”
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