Swedish vocals
International relevance: *
Björn Arahb was a visa singer (to remind you, visa is a certain kind of Swedish singer/songwriter music) that made handful of albums in the 70's and early 80's. Most of them are too far removed in style to warrant inclusion here, but ”Jag är en bekymrad socialist” (”I'm a troubled socialist”) qualifies.
Released in 1974, it's made up by songs written and released by the #1 visa singer Cornelis Vreeswijk. Several jazz and prog alumnis back him up, including Wlodek Gulgowski, Sabu Martinez, Jan Bandel and Luis Agudo (Energy). Lorne de Wolfe of Contact designed the album cover. Together they work up a funky groove on some tracks – try for instance ”Telegram for Lucidor”, ”En visa till Ellen när hon hade flyttat hemifrån” or ”Ågren”. Thing is, you can get it too from Vreeswijk's own albums around 1969/70, and better. And as Arahb tries hard to mimick Vreeswijk's special way of phrasing, ”Jag är en bekymrad socialist” comes off as a redudant work of a lesser copycat. The album is of course meant as a tribute but it falls flat compared to the original.
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