Kenth Larsson "Midnight Sun Express" (RCA Victor, 1976) (LP)
(Produced by Frank Jones)
A steel guitar session with Swedish picker/producer Kenth Larsson, accompanied by singer/guitarist Ann Persson and many others, including a core group of musicians in a covers band called Country Road, which later backed rockabilly legend Wanda Jackson on several roots-revival albums recorded in Europe during the early 'Eighties.
Jimmy Lawton - see artist profile
Volker Lechtenbrink "Der Macher: Volker Lechtenbrink Sangt Kris Kristofferson" (Polydor Records, 1976) (LP)
(Produced by Knut Kiesewetter)
Volker Lechtenbrink "No. 2" (Polydor Records, 1976) (LP)
(Produced by Gerd Henjes & Knut Kiesewetter)
Volker Lechtenbrink "Alltagsgeschichten" (Polydor Records, 1977) (LP)
Janne Lindgren & Country Minstrels "Janne Lindgren And Country Minstrels" (GM Production AB, 1975) (LP)
(Produced by Stig Wiklund)
Steel player Janne Lindgren (1944-2013) was a prolific studio musician who started the Country Minstrels back in 1964, a group which is said to have been the first homegrown country band in Sweden.
Lise "Lise's Country Show" (Combi Sound, 1986) (LP)
(Produced by Kim Sogard & Rene Taagehoj)
Danish singer Lise Nielsen recorded several albums, and sometimes was billed as "Country Lise," though this may have been to differentiate her twangier albums from her more pop/schlager-based material. It can be a fine line...
Lise "Vilde Blomster" (Light Sound, 1988) (LP)
(Produced by Hans Resen & Jorgen Wilhelmsen)
Long Distance "Bluegrass" (Cezame Records, 1977) (LP)
(Produced by Jean-Pierre Bameule, Christophe Bertoux, Jean-Marie Chabanon, Marcel Dadi & Francis Perrea)
A French bluegrass band with connections to multi-instrumentalist Gilbert Caranhac and his whole progressive-acoustic crew. This edition of the group centered around Herve De Sainte-Foy (bass), Mick Larie (mandolin), Jean-Louis Mongin (guitar and harmonica), Jean-Marie Redon (banjo), and Danny Vriet on violin. A whole host of other musicians are also credited, though perhaps not officially in the band, including steel player Jean-Yes Lozach, Danish picker Nils Tuxen on dobro, and a couple of different vocalists. The band was also sometimes billed as Bluegrass Long Distance, though I'm not sure if they recorded under that name.
Luke Warmwater "Harmony Grits" (Munich Records, 1974) (LP)
This European-based group appears to have been made up mainly of American expatriates living in Holland... Guitarist Steve Harding wrote a lot of their music, with backing by Alice Brown on fiddle and mandolin, and Willie Murphy plunking banjo, with various European collaborators. Brown later worked with a guy named Buddhix, who (in 1976) covered one of the Luke Warmwater songs, Steve Harding's "Saskatchewan Dan," while Harding himself relocated to California's central coast, where he went on to compose a variety of musical productions and albums. This first album has a more straightforward bluegrass/stringband feel than the one below, which gets into more hippie-folkie terrain. Sounds nice, though!
Luke Warmwater "Where Were You Before" (Stoof Records, 1975) (LP)
(Produced by Job Zomer & Dick van Schuppen)
Fiddle, banjo and guitar blend in an easygoing, fluid, post-bluegrass folkie miasma... These songs are mostly loose-knit, stream-of-consciousness affairs, pleasant on the ears though a little hard to focus on thematically. Hmmm. Well, yes, I suppose it's conceivable that these longhairs were getting a little stoned while living in Holland in the 1970s. Anything's possible, right? Anyway, less of a country thing, but nice for listeners who are into the whole folk-freak thing.
Country music is everywhere, even in the erudite intellectual aeries of Europe... In fact, there's so much of the stuff, I barely know a fraction of it. This section includes a bunch of random bluegrass and country bands from across the European continent, although I'm aware there are many, many other artists and albums not currently on my radar. Also, separate sections exist for Germany and The United Kingdom and Ireland which have their own large, impressive country scenes, though many of those albums may also be included here. And trust me, once I crack the code and find all the records, France, Croatia and Lichtenstein will all get their own twang guides, too! (PS: I apologize for not being able to support umlauts and schwas and other special characters and for making all your languages look so very not right. I'm just not smart enough for all that technical-type stuff!)
