It is incredibly sad, mournful and incomprehensible to read the news that Bengt "Beche" Berger has left us after a short period of illness. He was a fantastic musician - drummer, percussionist - who was actually much more than that. He was a musical dynamo, a unifying force in almost every context he worked in. If his name's on an album cover - and it is on so incredibly many - it's almost an unerring guarantee of quality. If his name is there, it's an album I have to listen to.
Calling him a legend is a gross understatement - if you have participated in groups such as Arbete & Fritid, Archimedes Badkar, Spjärnsvallet, and Bitter Funeral Beer Band, you're not just a legend, you're a musical historical node. That's how I first made his acquaintance, through music, from a distance.
It was much later that we developed an online friendship built on a deep, mutual respect which in turn was based on our shared love of MUSIC as the elixir of life, as the marrow of existence. I started reviewing Beche's releases on his label Country & Eastern decades ago. He liked them, was probably flattered, sometimes even embarrassed by my unvarniashed enthusiasm. Then he read what I wrote on my progg blog. He had my unrestricted permittance to publish anything he wanted on Country & Eastern's website which was just about everything I wrote about his records. It made me unspeakably proud to gain such trust from someone I admired so much.
The greatest gift however was asking me if I wanted to write a chapter for the fine memorial anthology of his friend and fellow musician Kjell Westling. I said yes without any hesitation, even though I had promised myself a long break from writing because I had worked far too long, far too much and far too underpaid for a publication that I will leave unnamed.
Another proud (semi-)professional moment was obviously when he enthusiastically and specifically for this blog wrote what's no less than an essay about his years playing with Don Cherry. A wonderful text that's permeated with that very warm love for MUSIC, for creativity and thus: for life itself. To be honoured with such an exclusive piece still touches my heart and I'm incredibly proud to have “Growing Music With Don” featured on The Swedish Progg Blog.
We e-mailed each other a bit some time after his words on Don Cherry were published. He appreciated my translation of it (it was originally written in Swedish) and thanked me for it. We talked about writing; he was very assertive I should turn the progg blog into a book. He told me he was working on an autobiography. Then some months passed, I thought of contacting him regarding a huge interview with him for the blog, covering his whole musical life. We had discussed it now and then over the years. As always, he would happily do it.
And then the incomprehensible, abyss black newspaper headlines pounded their way out my laptop screen: “Musician Bengt Berger has died”.
Kjell Westling is gone. Roland Keijser is gone. Now Beche's gone too. Perhaps the best musicians Sweden ever had. And with Beche, just like in the case of Roland, I have lost a friend whom I valued immensely. Thank you for brightening my life in so many different ways, Beche!
