I
CajsaStina Åkerström

About:

16 August 1967

CajsaStina is the daughter of famous Swedish singer Fred Åkertsröm, who worked closely with Cornelis Vreeswijk, among others. Together with her father she performed at an early age in many different contests such as Konserthuset in Stockholm 1980, with songs by folk ballad poet Fritz Sjöström, and at the folk ballad festival in Västervik 1979. During her school years she played flute, piano and had vocal lessons. After her fathers death in 1985 CajsaStina quit playing music. She moved to Lund where she studied archaeology. Then she picked up playing music again. In her spare time she learned, little by little, to play the guitar and started composing her own songs.

In connection with an archaeological dig as an employee at Kalmar Läns Museum she came in contact with a reporter and was offered to participate in a radio show. In 1991 she made her live radio debut with her own material and went on to gradually switch to music as a full time occupation.

Her debut album 'CajsaStina' was released in 1994 and became a breakthrough both musically and commercially with 130.000 copies sold. The same year she faced an audience as part of Rocktåget with Magnus Uggla, Just D and Orup.This album contains the very succesful single 'Fråga stjärnorna' ('Ask the stars').

1996 her second album 'Klädd för att gå' ('Dressed to go') was released. At the same time, she was writing songs for other artists such as Ann Kristin Hedmark and Lill Lindfors. After the third album 'Cirklar' ('Circles') in 1998 CajsaStina took a break from her solo recordings. She took up painting, wrote a book and collaborated with other artists, like Åsa Jinder on 'Av längtan till dig' ('The longing for you'), a no.1 in the Swedish chart, and Finn Kalvik.

In the autumn of 2001 the compilation album 'En bit på väg - CajsaStina Åkerströms bästa' ('A long way - CajsaStina's best') was released. The next year she released her fourth solo album 'Picknick'. In 2003 CajsaStina participated on the album 'Huset med de arton rummen' ('House with eighteen rooms') together with Stina Ekblad; the album contained texts by bishop emeritus Martin Lönnebo and was put to music and arranged by Stefan Jämtbäck.

In the summer of 2004 CajsaStina started her own record label Calimba Records AB and the summer of 2005 saw the release of the first production on this label; the CD 'De vackraste orden - Tio visor' ('The most beautiful words - ten songs'), on which she interpreted other composers songs, it was an immediate success in the charts and went gold (30.000 copies) in 3 months.

The autumn of 2006 saw the release of the album 'Kärleken finns överallt' ('Love is everywhere') featuring a string of self composed pop songs along with a cover version of 'If ever you need me' ('Om du behöver mig'), originally by David Halley.

In 2007 she released a follow up to the succesful cover project 'De vackraste orden': 'Visor från förr och nu' )´Songs from the past and present').

In 2009 the album 'Sånger om dej och mej' ('Song about you and me') was released. Her eighth album has been nominated for a Swedish grammi for best folk album. The album was recorded with a small, acoustic band (grand piano, contrabass, drums & percussion and guitar). CajsaStina produced the album herself and she also composed nine of the eleven songs on the album. Jack Vreeswijk, son of Cornelis Vreeswijk, appears as guest singer on two songs, including the traditional ‘Jag hade en gång en båt’, made famous by the Beach Boys as ‘Sloop John B’ and one of Cornelis Vreeswijk’s signature songs.

On the web:

- CajsaStinaa's official website: http://www.cajsastina.com

What do we think:

PR: CajsaStina’s style is half folk, half pop music with touches of jazz here and there. To my ears it all sounds ‘typical Scandinavian’. She has a very clear singing voice and her (mostly self-penned) songs are very personal and have intelligent, beautiful lyrics. In some perspective, she is a young Swedish version of Joni Mitchell, although her Scandinavian singing style is more distant and icy cool than Mitchell’s. I suppose not evryone will be charmed by her songs and singing style, they tend to become a bit clean. Still, if you happen to like them, as I do, her 2002 album 'Picknick' and her latest record ‘Sången om dig och mig’ are very enjoyable and has much nice melodies and texts to offer.

If you like this, you probably like.. / european counterparts:

Martyna Jakubowicz (Poland)

Maurane (Belgium)

Albums:

♪♪♪ - CajsaStina - 1994

Klädd f ör att g å - 1996

♪♪♪ - Cirklar - 1998

♪♪♪♪ - Picknick - 2002

De vackraste ordern - Tio visor - 2005

Kärleken finns överallt - 2006

♪♪ - Visor från fòrr och nu - 2007

♪♪♪ - Sången om dig och mig - 2009

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♪♪♪♪♪ = outstanding album, an absolute must-have
♪♪♪♪ = great album, highly recomended
♪♪♪ = nice album
♪♪ = be careful, requires listening before buying
♪ = best to be avoided