Ekor Anders Andersson

Ekor Anders Andersson(1898-1983) was born in the little village of Evertsberg in Älvdalen, northern Dalarna, and he lived there all his life. I met him in for the first time in 1970 when I visited him in his home. He was known to be rather timid, if not shy, but we had fine contact from the first moment, perhaps because he saw that I brought a fiddle case when he opened the door to me. After this I visited him many times and also made several of my fiddling friends, like Kalle Almlöf and Simon Simonsson, know him, because I wanted that those I played with should have the same experiences as me, so that we could speak the same language. He even came to visit me in Malung at a 'spelmansstämma' (fiddlers' gathering) together with another old fiddler, Harald Johansson from southern Jämtland. Ekor Anders' success was tremendous and he became very popular among the many young fiddlers of the 70's folk revival movement. He was a symbol of everything we were looking for: good technique, old playing style and a vast number of fine tunes.

Ekor Anders was unmarried and was known as a rather original person in his home village. Beside music he had many interests. He painted in the floral style of country painters of the last century, he was an amateur dialect researcher and it is grace to him that the ancient local dialect names of several plants, birds and animals have survived (Älvdalen has one of the most ancient dialects of Sweden), he collected old stories and was a fine teller of them. Ekor Anders was a very sweet and kind man. His voice was full and resonant, a fellow musician, Röjås Jonas, said it had "the sound of a cello" (he would have been a great singer but I never heard him sing). He shared his tunes with great generosity to the many young fiddlers who came to visit him after he had became famous. I would say that Ekor Anders is one of my own very greatest influences, present in almost any tune I play. I'm immensely grateful to him and think of him almost every day.

Because Ekor Anders was such an important person in Swedish folk music life during the 70's I arranged a recording session with him. The resulting LP, first released by Europafilm's sublabel Fjedur (name overtaken from mine and Kalle Almlöf's one-record label), the master now owned by Sonet, isn't reissued. This year I will release a long wanted CD (or double CD) with Ekor Anders' own recordings from the beginning of the 50's. Wait and see.