Who is Ole Olsson? Ole Olsson, of Snoose Boulevard fame, is
the supposed leader of the group, but he has yet to turn up at
any gigs. Folklore has it that he once owed someone a musical
favor, so he was forced to scour the entire state of Minnesota
looking for musicians to make up a band. In the end, he managed
to put together this all-star cast. Olsson was quoted by Lutefisk
Today to say: "Ya, dey sure can play dose old time dance
tunes, and dey work real cheap too." Olsson was particularly
pleased that half the band is composed of females."Der is
a lot less snoose chewing on stage," he noted. "I yust
hate it when dey dribble tobacco yuice on my microphones!"
Nothing has been heard from Ole since, but the band carries on,
wondering if one day he may appear......
Ole Olsson s Oldtime Orkestra (usually referred to as O.O.O.O.)
is a fun loving group of musicians who first met each other at
Dick Rees Sunday Evening Social dances at the Good Templar Hall
in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Nowadays, they still play some pretty
darn good Scandinavian music for oldtime dancing and/or just plain
enjoying. They play fiddles, accordions, pump organ and guitar,
and sing some funny Scandinavian vaudeville songs that may occasionally
make Lutheran ladies smile. They play for festivals and lutefisk
feeds all around Minnesota and even make it out of the state once
in awhile in their old yalopy to perform in far flung places like
North Dakota!
Ole Olssons Oldtime Orkestra:
Art Bjorngjeld - chromatic accordion, fiddle, vocals, snus eschewer
Char Bostrom - fiddle, non-accordionist
Bruce Bostrom - jawharp, organ schleper
Mary Abendroth - pump organ, vocals, nice person in the group?
Paul Wilson - fiddle, button accordion, guitar, tekno-dork
Contact us:
Art Bjorngjeld - 763-566-8255, bjorngjeld@juno.com
Char & Bruce Bostrom - 651-778-9175, bcbostrom@qwest.net
Paul Wilson & Mary Abendroth - 218-764-2994, pwilson@brainerd.net
or write to us:
Ole Olsson s Oldtime Orkestra
16586 Nokay Lake Rd
Brainerd, Mn 56401
Here is a sampling of places where O.O.O.O has performed:
Stockholm, Wisconsin
Stockholm, Sweden
Laurium, Michigan
Östbjörka, Sweden
New York City, Ny.
Nisswa, Mn
Cambridge, Mn
) Art Bjorngjeld lives in Brooklyn Park and is a veteran
performer, playing fiddle, accordion, guitar and bass. He is a
talented musician and a funny guy, singing lots of 'Scandinavian
dialect songs'. Art currently is the regular cohost of the irregular
Scandinavian dances in the Twin Cities and also performs with
the well known Minnesota Scandinavian Ensemble.
) Char Bostrom lives in E. St. Paul and is also a veteran
performer. Char plays traditional Swedish harmony fiddle and is
one of the best at what she does in the state of Minnesota, even
though she doesn't think so. (How could she? - She's a Swede)
Besides performing in Ole Olson's, she plays solo fiddle for polska
dance lessons, 'sits in' with various groups, and is cohost of
the the irregular Scandinavian dances in the Twin Cities.
Char also tells a mean Sven and Ole joke!
) Mary Abendroth lives south of Deerwood, Mn and has been performing music for most of her life, starting with choirs in high school, going through travels around the world with COMEX, a singing/performing group similar to Up with People, to performing as a duo with her husband Paul Wilson all over the midwest for the last 20 years. Mary has a wonderful voice, singing in Swedish and has a very deft touch on her preferred instrument, the pump organ!
) Paul Wilson has been playing traditional Scandinavian music for 25 years. With Swedish grandparents and Norwegian great-grandparents, Paul's wide interests have led him to studying musical traditions from all the Scandinavian countries. This is reflected in the festival that Paul founded called Nisswa-stamman. It is a pan Scandinavian festival embracing the music of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. Paul plays 'drone' fiddles that he builds himself and also plays the 2 row button accordion, guitar and sings dialect "swinglish" songs like Nikolina.
) Bruce Bostrom is a veteran performer and raconteur with a fantastic necktie collection. Bruce is one of the best munnharpe players in Minnesota and claims to have an inside track on the where-abouts of Ole Olson himself! Hear Bruce performing on his harpe here.
