Lea Riders Group was a Swedish rock band with roots in
Borgholm,
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
.
The band formed in 1961 when Hawkey Franzén started the Red River Band, a trio consisting of a drummer, accordionist and
trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
player, along with two of his friends. Additional members were added and after 1963, the Red River Band changed its name to Lea Riders Group. Many members came and went but founder and frontman Hawkey Franzén was the constant member in the band's lineup. After playing in schools and party places on the island of
Öland
Öland (, ; ; sometimes written ''Øland'' in other Scandinavian languages, and often ''Oland'' internationally; la, Oelandia) is the second-largest Swedish island and the smallest of the traditional provinces of Sweden. Öland has an area ...
, in
Kalmar, the rest of
Småland
Småland () is a historical province () in southern Sweden.
Småland borders Blekinge, Scania, Halland, Västergötland, Östergötland and the island Öland in the Baltic Sea. The name Småland literally means ''Small Lands''. The Latinized fo ...
,
Blekinge
Blekinge (, old da, Bleking) is one of the traditional Swedish provinces (), situated in the southern coast of the geographic region of Götaland, in southern Sweden. It borders Småland, Scania and the Baltic Sea. It is the country's second ...
and
Östergötland
Östergötland (; English exonym: East Gothland) is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish) in the south of Sweden. It borders Småland, Västergötland, Närke, Södermanland and the Baltic Sea. In older English li ...
, the band got an opportunity to play in
Stockholm
Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
in 1966. There they quickly built a name among students and youth, and the group became a popular
indie band
Independent music (also commonly known as indie music or simply indie) is music that is produced independently from commercial record labels or their subsidiaries, a process that may include an autonomous, do-it-yourself approach to recording a ...
before the term had even been coined. Their first television appearance was in autumn 1966, when a live performance directed by Stefan Jarl and Jan Lindqvist was shown on
SVT. A number of singles were recorded and released by
Philips Records
Philips Records is a record label founded by the Dutch electronics company Philips. It was founded as Philips Phonographische Industrie in 1950. In 1946, Philips acquired the company which pressed records for British Decca's Dutch outlet in A ...
. It would once again collaborate with Jarl and Lindqvist when Lea Riders Group got to record some of the soundtrack to the film ''
Dom Kallar Oss Mods''. (''"They Call Us Misfits"'' in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
). Jarl and Lindqvist's choices for recording the soundtrack was between Lea Riders Group and a similar band called
Baby Grandmothers
The Baby Grandmothers were a Swedish psychedelic rock band formed in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1967. Established after the dissolution of the R&B band, the T-Boones, the group enjoyed a cult following as the house band at the popular psychedelic mus ...
. However the main theme was written and recorded by Lee Riders group that later was appearing on lists all around Europe.
In the middle of 1968, most of the members deemed that gigs and jams were not going to move the band forward, and Franzén dissolved the group in May of that year. The band Made in Sweden was formed from the remnants of Lea Riders Group by Bo Häggström and Slim Borgudd.
Music
The Lea Rider Group's original instruments were replaced rather quickly to the more typical
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...
,
bass guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...
,
drums
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...
,
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
/
keyboards
Keyboard may refer to:
Text input
* Keyboard, part of a typewriter
* Computer keyboard
** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping
** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware
Music
* Musi ...
and
harmonica
The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica inclu ...
. Despite this change, the band still occasionally played the
accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...
as the unusual instrument was well-liked by Franzén. The band had a broad song catalog and mixed many different styles of music during its relatively short career. They became famous in Sweden and abroad, as a "raw, gritty and authentic blues and R&B group" in the style of similar blues-oriented
British Invasion
The British Invasion was a cultural phenomenon of the mid-1960s, when rock and pop music acts from the United Kingdom and other aspects of British culture became popular in the United States and significant to the rising "counterculture" on b ...
bands and American
garage bands such as
The Chocolate Watchband. The band's music also had
psychedelic
Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary states of consciousness (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips").Pollan, Michael (2018). ''How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of ...
elements, pop influences and more melodic pieces.
Discography
Lea Riders Group never released any studio albums during the group's active years. The group's live radio recordings, however, were saved and an
LP of live material and studio recordings were issued in 1989 on the small record label
Garageland Records. The same material was released on
CD in 1998.
Singles
*"Lost Love" / "Tryin" (1966)
*"Got No Woman" / "But I Am, and Who Cares?" (1966)
*"The Situation's Rare" / "Key To The Riddle" (1967)
*"Is it Not Strange?" / "Beloved Baby" (1967)
*"The Forgotten Generation" / "Dom Kallar Oss Mods" ("They Call Us Misfits") (1968)
Albums
*''Lea Riders Group - The Forgotten Generation'' (LP 1989, CD 1998)
External links
Hawkey Franzén's Lea Riders Group pageProgg.se - Hawkey Franzén page
{{Authority control
Swedish rock music groups
Musical groups established in 1961
1961 establishments in Sweden