Artists & Bands

Björn Skifs tunes

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One of the most beloved artists in Sweden!

Björn Skifs is what they call in Sweden “folkkär”, meaning beloved by the people. He’s considered by the Swedes to be a great singer, actor, entertainer, and songwriter.

Starting out with Slam Creepers in 1962, he had moderate success touring around Sweden. At the time his main influences were Little Richard and Steve Winwood of The Spencer Davis Group.

When the band disbanded in 1969, Björn ventured into light live entertainment as a song-and-dance comedy act for a couple of years.

This led to forming a new band Blåblus, which directly translates to Blue Jumper but is also a wordplay on Blue Blues.

With Blåblus, he’d have his greatest success with a cover of Mark James‘s tune Hooked On A Feeling (1974), an international hit with his band that had to quickly change the name to Blue Swede.

The song actually made it to #1 in the U.S. and has since remained in the public consciousness through films like Reservoir Dogs and Guardians Of The Galaxy.

After a few albums with the band, Björn decided to go solo which meant singing in Swedish.

He frequently competed in Melodifestivalen, the Swedish qualifying race to enter the Eurovision Song Contest, participating in 72, 75, 78, and 81. His best tune here was Michelangelo (5th place in 1975).

In 78 and 81 he actually made it to the finals, ending up 14th and 10th. If you’re not from Sweden you don’t realize how big of a deal this competition is, it’s up there with Christmas and Midsummer as annual highlights.

Björn Skifs’s musical career was very much his focus from 69-85 when he’d release almost an album every year.

This was followed by three big (Swedish) films in 88-93 with Strul, Drömkåken, and Joker. Followed by translating Tom Hanks’s voice for Woody in the Swedish translation of two Toy Story films in 95, and 99.

During this time he also released an autobiography and went back to his roots as a song and dance comedy act, performing live in the summers when the Swedes come out to take part in life, in the winter they stay indoors, complaining about the snow.

In 2000, he released another studio album Back on Track, strangely having an English title but singing in Swedish.

Since the millennium, Björn Skifs has kept releasing albums, had residence shows as well as toured the country. He’s as loved as ever by the people but never reached the heights of the glory days when Hooked On A Feeling was topping the charts and he was #1 in America.