Sing, Anna-Lisa, Sing!

A new discovery, well new to me anyway, the bonkers-as-all-get-up Swedish singer Anna-Lisa Ingemanson.

Born in Stockholm in 1909, she released at least two albums, Musik Med Trio and Med Orkester, and a half-dozen Eps and 45s, the first (Songs for Solo Piano) on Sela sometime in the late 1960s, and all the rest on her own ALI label, with titles such as Den Lycklige Nudisten (the Happy Nudist) and Var Jag Går I Skogar, Berg Och Dalar, or Where I Walk In Forests, Mountains And Valleys. All of these self-released discs seem to date from around 1971-1975.

She became something of a star on Swedish TV, turning up on variety shows such as Bättre sänt än aldrig (Better Seen Than Never) with one of her pooches to sing a song. There’s footage from one of these shows on YouTube, Anna-Lisa caked in white makeup, in a white dress with white fur trim, cracking a whip accompanied by a nonplussed white poodle. She looks like a cross between Leona Anderson and the Del Rubio Triplets, and sings like the orphaned niece of Mrs Miller and Natália de Andrade. What’s not to love? 

In 1976 she appeared, as Emma Messerschmidt-On-The-Rocks, on three tracks (including a re-recording of The Happy Nudist) on the musical comedy album Lasse Mansson Presents Bad Old Days, a direct spin off of Bättre sänt än aldrig. from what I can gather this would be her last recording, although she continued to perform for at least another decade. It appears that Anna-Lisa was still making the occasional live appearance in the mid-1980s. Swedish music blog Sunkit reports that she once turned up to a gig, complete with the obligatory poodle and with a cassette player over her shoulder. She explained that, ‘my piano teacher must not be up this late’, before launching into her set with her usual whip-cracking gusto.

More recently one of her recordings, Oxdragarsång (the opening track of her debut album Musik Med Trio), turned up on a cassette-only release Club Sunk in Sundsvall Hit Explosion Volume One, a tribute to some of Sweden’s more outré performers put together by Peter Webb and Daniel Westin, who ran an outsider music club night. Others have collated Anna-Lisa’s recordings onto CDr, but no official compilation has been issued… yet. She died in February 2003, at the grand old age of 93.

Here are a couple of tracks to whet your whistle: Oxdragarsång, from her 1972 debut album Musik Med Trio, and from her second album, the 1973 release Med Orkester, Oh, En Sån Underbar Morgon or Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.

Enjoy!

Download Oxdragarsång HERE

Download Underbar Morgon HERE