Miss Båbs, vila i frid

From the ESCtoday website comes more sad news for Eurovision fans:

Another Eurovision star has fallen away, as iconic singer Barbro Svensson, professionally known as Lill-Babs (“Little Babs”), has passed away. Lill-Babs, who recently celebrated her 80th birthday and was referred to as “Sweden’s grand old lady”, died after being hospitalized following a heart failure.

Sad, indeed. This was the woman who, after all, was the top-billing performer when the Beatles first appeared in concert in Sweden, and the star for whom the four vocalists soon to be known as ABBA first hit the big-time as backing vocalists...

By way of a tribute, here's the lady herself, in her absolute camp prime, accompanied by (and occasionally beating-up) her obligatory bevy of safety gays!

Lill Babs - Det Var Ett Fint År (It Was A Very Good Year) - 1976

There are going to be quite a few black armbands at the Eurovision Song Contest this year, methinks...

RIP Barbro Margareta Svensson (known as Lill-Babs, 9th March 1938 – 3rd April 2018)

Read my previous tributes to the great lady here, here and here.

Amore, more, more

Weekends (especially sunny ones) just fly by.

On this Tacky Music Monday, we are not just in desperate need of cheering up as we head back to work...

...we also have the birthday of another camp-as-tits diva-wannabee-of-exotic-lands to celebrate! Many happy returns to Miss Barbro Margareta Svensson - better known as 60s Swedish superstar Lill Babs, who celebrated 60 years in the music industry last year.

To celebrate here is the lady herself, way back when beehives were essential - with the sexy-in-his-day German "answer to Elvis" Peter Kraus - and Amore. Mr Kraus appears to be trying desperately to pretend he has any interest whatsoever in those dancing girls...

Lill Babs with Peter Kraus - Amore

Have a good week, peeps!

Facts about Lill-Babs:

• Many of her original songs were written and composed by Stig Anderson, who went on to produce ABBA, and members of the soon-to-be-supergroup even sang as her backing singers on some early recordings.
• She represented Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1961 with April, April, and appeared in the Melodifestivalen many times afterwards.
• The Beatles apparently asked for her autograph when they all appeared on the same Swedish TV show in 1963.
• She still occasionally sings live, and is a frequent guest star on Swedish television to this day.

Lill-Babs (born 9th March 1938).

More Miss Babs here and here.

The Vikings are coming!

Our chum Nigel got me a ticket yesterday to a very special preview of the British Museum's much-anticipated new exhibition Vikings: life and legend - which was an excellent exploration of the truth about the Vikings. Of no particular single ethnic group, "Viking" was more a way of being, a lifestyle of plunder, invasion and conquest - and yet these bloodthirsty Berserkers inadvertently facilitated a huge economic uplift to the way "Dark Age" Europe traded across borders. Loot from both legitimate and illegitimate dealings with communities as diverse as the Arabs, Khazars, Celts, Saxons and Britons reveals the extent to which the Vikings travelled, and the way armed resistance to their much-loathed raids and settlements actually precipitated the rise of nations along the modern, recognisable borders we see in Europe today.



On this Tacky Music Monday - to cheer us up as we trudge back to work on this lovely Spring day, after being soaked and frozen solid all weekend - here's another Scandinavian export (of a far more glamorous kind, needless to say), Miss Lill-Babs, with a song that reads like a particularly high-scoring Scrabble winner - Tuff Brud I Lyxförpackning:

Lill Babs - Tuff Brud I Lyxförpackning

Have a good week, folks!

Lill-Babs on Wikipedia

Have yøu mæt Miss Båbs?

On a little trawl last night through some of the regular blogs I follow, I came across an article about Scopitones - those fabulous 1960s predecessors of the music video. I have been a great collector of various Scopitones over the years, on the whole featuring long-lost starlets from France or the USA.

Imagine my joy when I delved into the catalogue on the Scopitone Archive website and picked at random a marvellously kitsch Swedish pop star by the name of Lill-Babs, and just had to share!

I had never heard of her before, but apparently everyone in Sweden loves her. At the height of her fame, she was more popular than the Beatles. In Sweden.

She had a bit of a wild life by the sounds of it, marrying several times and having three daughters by different husbands (or lovers, for I don't think all of them were born within wedlock). A bit Ingmar Bergman, but with sequins. She is obviously a camp icon - according to her Wikipedia entry she appeared at Stockholm Pride in 2008.

Here (appropriately) is the Scopitone of her version of Poetry in Motion [Wo Find Ich Den Mann] in which she gives us some clues why that may be...

Lill Babs - Wo Find Ich Den Mann

However, another very good reason for her popularity with the gayers may be this record - a big hit in 1971 and contender for the Eurovision Song Contest - for the lady's backing singers were none other than a certain popular folk combo known as "Björn, Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid"! I think they may have gone on to bigger and better things.

Lill-Babs - Välkommen till världen (with ABBA)

These days she appears to have morphed somewhat - into a larger version of Annie Nightingale, perhaps? Or Marianne Faithfull after a particularly heavy night..?

Lill Babs - Håll huvudet högt - Hela låten!

Lill-Babs on Wikipedia