Bo Hansson - Solo Debut

Solo Debut

By 1969, Janne Carlsson had become a successful comedian and TV host, and Hansson decide to break up the partnership. Entranced by a copy of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, which he had purloined from his girlfriend, he moved into a friend's vacant apartment and started writing. When the unfortunate friend returned, he found that he had been evicted from his apartment after numerous complaints about the noise Hansson was creating. Hansson retreated to a remote cottage on an island off Stockholm where he, drummer Rune Carlsson and engineer Anders Lind, who had worked previously with Hansson & Karlsson, spent the winter of 1969 recording what was to become Hansson's debut solo album on a borrowed four track recorder. The resourceful Lind was even able to gain use of the only eight track recorder in Sweden at that time at the Swedish National Radio station, on the pretext that he was interested in buying one himself and wanted to test it. Once there, he persuaded session musicians Gunnar Bergsten and Sten Bergman to flesh out the recordings.

Sagan Om Ringen was released on Silence Records (Sweden's first independent record label which was set up by Anders Lind) in autumn 1970 and became a huge hit. Copies of the album began to filter across to Britain where it came to the attention of Tony Stratton-Smith, who was so impressed that he released the album as Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings on his own Famous Charisma label in September 1972. The album peaked at #34 on the UK Album Chart and became Bo's only UK Top 40 album.