Radio Ellen was an important feminist show on Swedish national radio aired between 1981 and 1995. They did interviews with unknown women at ordinary jobs, and the content was sometimes controversial for its time. The program broadcast from three cities originally, Luleå, Umeå and Gothenburg, and presented female artists in special studio sessions. The first of those was Gerd Sjöblom-Ulander who appeared on the very first episode, from Umeå in September 1981. A full album of songs she performed on the show was eventually released on Radio Ellen's one-shot label, according to some sources in 1982 although no release date is specified anywhere on the cover or label.
Simply called Gerd on the album, she
has quite a fine voice, a bit jazzy and a bit folkish. As a matter of fact, she sometimes reminds me a little bit of UK indie/folk singer Heidi Berry. A few
songs are originals, but the majority are covers of the likes of Chi
Coltrane, Carla Bley, Laura Nyro and Violetta Parra. Some are
acoustic and some feature a band backing. It's not a masterpiece, but
it's certainly better than I expected from the album
cover. And like I said, her voice is really enjoyable.
Interesting
to note is that Gerd's husband also appearing here was saxophonist
Lars-Göran Ulander who had previously been in Berndt Egerbladh's quartet, has albums out with free jazz pianist Per-Henrik Wallin, and later joined forces with Mats Gustafsson in
his free jazz powerhouse outfit Fire! Orchestra.
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