LENNIE NORMAN – Transport (GMP, 1978)

English vocals
International relevance: *

Son of Swedish boogie woogie pianist Charlie Norman and often bass player in dad's band, but these days best known nationally as Swedish stand-up comedy's grand old man, Lennie Norman is hardly someone to you'd think of as progg. 

Also, record label GMP, short for Great Music Productions, has notoriously avoided coming up with anything to live up to its pompous name. Proggwise, they have the lacklustre 7” EP by Fem Älgar I Ett Badkar and the decidedly crappy album by Måns Mossa. And that's about it. The rest is comically bad country singers, rheumatic rock & roll acts and loads of that particular brand of evil called Swedish dance bands.

First of all: Lennie Norman is not a very good singer. His voice is uninteresting and his English pronounciation pretty much sounds like when you mock Swedes for their terrible English pronounciation. And musically, most of what's on ”Transport” is either bad country music or rheumatic rock & roll. Add to that some typical-of-the-time disco moves that were representative to that particular brand of evil called Swedish dance bands.

The cover choices aren't exactly dazzling either; a pointless attempt at pointless singer Tommy Roe's pointless Buddy Holly pastiche ”Sheila”, a discofied take on The Box Tops' chestnut ”The Letter” and a limp version of Mose Allison's ”Parchman Farm” are hardly stuff to spark my enthusiasm.

That said, album opener (and Lennie Norman original) ”Street Roller” is surprisingly heavy with some gritty guitar playing, but it would have benefitted from better vocals. ”Haven't Got A Mother” has a laidback J.J. Cale funk to it with some rather cool guitar picking. The guitar playing is generally the best thing about the album, courtesy of Rune Furén who'd previously been in really appalling rock revival-cum-comedy act Rockfolket and Swedish rock & roll has-been Rock-Ragge's band – stuff I've spent a whole life avoiding.

But two half decent tracks don't make an album, and if the inclusion in "The Encyclopedia of Swedish Progressive Music" piqued your interest (like it did for me), then a word of warning might be in place.

Transport