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Cina
Samuelson - Cool Country Music From Sweden |
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Fresh off of her tour of Finland Swedish Country Music singer and
songwriter Cina Samuelson took time with Riveting Riffs Magazine to
reflect upon her career and her life.
“We had a wonderful tour and we played at wonderful places that most of
the times were near water. We had lovely weather, the sun was shining
and the sunsets were so wonderful.
It was a tour that I will have in my mind and in my heart for a
very long time,” says Cina Samuelson (pronounced Keena Samuelson).
The year 2020 will mark the twentieth anniversary for Cina Samuelson’s
solo career, after spending ten years as a founding member of the band
Freetown Highway and another five years performing with other bands.
During her career she has toured and performed in the United States with
Charlie McCoy, Dale Watson, Teri Joyce and Becky Hobbs.
To celebrate that anniversary she is going to start recording a new
album this fall (2019) to be released in 2020 and it will include her
recent single “Sweet Mama, Elvis and Me,” (now available to purchase
online).
She talks about that single, “It is a song that I wrote about my mother
and me and the way that she taught me to dance crazy to Rock and Roll
and Elvis Presley. I haven’t got a name for the new album yet. I haven’t
decided which song will be the title song. I am going to record this
exactly the way I did it with the Roots and Memories album (2014), to
sit down with all of the musicians at the same time. I did it that way
with this single as well. It was a smaller studio. I would like to do
the album that way again and do it like a live recording.”
“I have been singing since I was a little girl. Some of my aunts sang a
lot and my grandpa loved music and he loved to sing. My mother was a
good singer, but she didn’t perform in front of people. She loved to
sing at home and she played some accordion. (My family) inspired me;
because they loved music and we listened to a lot of music. My mother
was a big fan of Elvis Presley, so she played a lot of Elvis songs for
me when I was a little girl. She sang and danced a lot and she put me on
her hip. She would dance around the room with me,” she recalls.
When Cina Samuelson was six years old she began to play the zither and
she continued to play it until she was ten years old. For those not
familiar with the instrument we asked her to describe it to us.
“It looks like a small table with a lot of strings and you can play
chords on it. When you have taken one chord then you take another chord
and then you have to put your hand on the first chord, so it will be
silent,” she says.
Samuelson recalls when she heard Country Music for the first time, “When
I was seven years old I went to my aunt’s place and I was going to stay
on her farm for two weeks. In my bedroom she had a record player and I
asked her to please play something for me one night when I was going to
bed. She said yes, I will. She picked one compilation record with
different kinds of American Country Music artists. She put the record on
and started it and I fell in love from the very first note. I didn’t
know what they were singing about, because I didn’t understand the
language. The music, the
songs and the way that they were singing and playing talked right to my
heart. I fell in love with
that music that night and every night that I stayed at her home I begged
her to please put on that record again. I listened to it and listened to
it and I loved it. I said to myself when I was a bigger and older girl I
would love to be a Country Music singer.
I waited until I was thirteen and then I started to sing Country
Music.”
Although, she could not understand what the artists were singing about,
because she could not speak English back then, her aunt understood a
little bit of English and explained to her what the songs were about.
“One song I did not ask her to explain so much. It was a Dottie West
song that I recorded some years ago called “Mommy Can I Still Call Him
Daddy?” I was seven years old when I heard her singing it together with
her son and he was four years old at the time. I fell in love with that
song and maybe it was because I heard he was a little boy. That song
talked to my heart. I understood when I listened to it that he was sad.
It was a sad song. I asked my aunt why was he sad and she said his
father had gone,” she says.
”When I was 8 years old I started to sing in a choir for children. I
liked it very much. But after two years I was bored because I thought
the songs were too easy and they were not interesting. I thought it
would be more fun to sing with the adult choir instead. I knew that they
sang harmonies and I just loved that. My aunt had practiced harmony
singing with me since I was seven years old and I felt ready to do
it together with other singers.
My choir leader was also the adult choir leader and I told her that I
wanted to start singing with the adults instead but she said that I was
a kid and had to wait until I was older. But I didn’t take no for an
answer so I was nagging and nagging and one day she said okay, come to
our rehearsal tonight and then we will see.
I was so happy. I stayed the whole night and sang a lot of songs with
them. When it was time to go home she said here are the lyrics to the
songs we sang tonight. If you can sing them without looking in
the papers next week you will be one of the singers in this choir. I
practiced and practiced and at the end of the next rehearsal she
welcomed me to the choir. I was a very happy girl. I became their lead
singer and sang with them until I was twelve years old and then we moved
to another town.”
The next year when she turned thirteen Cina Samuelson sang Country Music
in front of an audience for the first time.
“It was for a song competition. Everyone else was singing Pop and Rock
and then I came and said I am going to sing a Country song for you. I
loved it and I was so proud, but some of my friends thought I was crazy.
They wanted to know what kind of music was Country Music. They loved Pop
and Rock more, but I didn’t care, because I loved it very much and I
just did it. I didn’t win, but I came in second place, so I was very,
very proud.
I sang “Stand By Your Man.” They had a band that played for all of the
girls and boys who took part in this competition. They played it well
and I was satisfied afterwards. It was great. I had been singing since I
was seven years old, but I had been singing Swedish children’s songs and
sometimes I sang with a piano player or someone who played guitar or I
accompanied myself on the zither, but this time it was with a whole
band, so it was very, very nice,” she says.
When she was eighteen years old Cina Samuelson formed the Country Music
band Freetown Highway with her brother Berra Karlsson one of Sweden’s
most famous pedal steel players. At the age of twenty she wrote her
first song and it was a love song about how happy a person can be when
they are in love.
About Freetown Highway she says, “We said now we are going to play
Country Music (light warm
laughter). The ages of the band members were from sixteen to
eighteen years and it was fun. I think that band did well, because at
that time we were the youngest Country Music band in Sweden. One famous
pedal steel player in Sweden, Janne Lindgren, heard us and he wanted to
help us, because he thought it was so wonderful that young people loved
Country Music and wanted to play it. He helped us a lot and he filmed
us. He took us to his home and he showed us the film and he said okay
that’s good. Try to do it a little more like that and keep thinking
about this. He taught us a lot. He was great and I also think that we
were good and (especially), because we were so young. We learned a lot
and we listened a lot. All of the time we tried to do our best and we
wanted to be a good band and we worked hard. I think that is mainly why
(we were successful). People liked it.
At the time when we formed Freetown Highway some older musicians came to
me and said ha ha, Country music, you will never be a Country star. It
is better for you if you start singing with us instead. I said thanks
but no thanks. I don't care if I'm not going to be a Country star. I
love it and this is what I want to do. They came back several times and
said the same thing and they always got the same answer from me. The
last time they came they said okay it's your loss. When I'm thinking
about this today I am so glad and proud of myself that I stood up for
what I wanted to do. It's almost forty years ago and I'm still doing
what I love to do.
There were not so many specific Country Music radio stations like we
have today, but radio played our songs a lot. It helped us very much. It
is more difficult to get your songs played these days than it was at
that time. We also got gigs at big stages. I think that helped a lot
too.
From the very beginning we did mostly covers and then through the years
we started to write some of our own songs and it became a combination of
the two.”
After thirteen years of being together the band members of Freetown
Highway went their separate ways in the mid-1990s.
During the years between 1995 and 2000 Cina Samuelson says, “I sang
Country Music, but with different groups and there were some bands that
wanted me to work with them.
It worked and it was good, but all of the time I was thinking
about doing something on my own and I was deciding what I wanted to do.
What will I do? What do I love to do? I thought a lot during these five
years what my next step would be. I decided I wanted to go out as a solo
act and do my own songs.
I had a wonderful time in my band Freetown Highway, but we were a band
and it was important that all of us could say what we wanted to do. I
longed to do something on my own.
In the year 2000 it felt very, very good when I started to go out that
summer and sing in my own name. People knew me from Freetown Highway,
but I was a little nervous, because I knew that people loved Freetown
Highway very, very much. I thought people might say, oh you don’t sound
like Freetown, but at the same time I didn’t care, because this is what
I wanted to do. It was wonderful. It is so crazy that next year I am
celebrating twenty years as a solo artist.”
I started thinking about doing an album (Country
to Country), two years after I started to go out and sing in my own
name. I had started to write songs that I could maybe use for an album.
I was also a little bit afraid, because I didn’t want to do an album
with only my own songs. I had read so many reviews from so many Swedish
(critics) about other artists who when they did their own songs the
reviews said oh it is not good. So I thought it was better to do some
songs or half of the songs from my own pen and some songs from other
songwriters. I recorded ten songs and I wrote seven of them. It turned
out so well and my reviews were good. I was happy and it (encouraged me)
to write my songs. I was so glad that people liked them.”
At the beginning
of Cina Samuelson’s solo career she had approached several record
labels, “I sent my songs to several record companies in Sweden and hoped
that someone would sign me. All of them liked my voice, the harmony
singing, my songs, the arrangements and the musicians but, every company
told me to do Pop Country. The most important thing for me was to do
what I wanted to do, to do music from and with my heart.
When I realized that they only wanted a pop
country girl I decided to start my own record company.
I called it CCM, Cool Country Music.
By this time Cina Samuelson was married to her husband Johnny and living
in the woods. Yes you read that correctly and we shared some warm
laughter about it being such a great environment for a Country singer.
“I met my husband when we were playing in Freetown Highway and we did
not fall in love from the very beginning, because it took three years,
before we realized that we were in love.
Then we moved out to his grandma and grandpa’s little place. They
had this little house as a summer house and they said that if you want
to live here it is time for us to leave it. If you want to take it over
you can live here, so we bought it. We moved out to the woods and it is
the best thing that I have done,” she says.
Three years passed by and when 2007 dawned Cina Samuelson released her
second album, Laugh, Love and
Live.
“I wrote all of the songs myself and the first song that I wrote for the
album was the title song “Laugh, Love and Live.” I lost my youngest
sister many years ago and it was the saddest moment in my life. One day
I was sitting and thinking about her and I thought she would be very sad
if she just saw me sitting and crying. I asked myself what the most
important thing was for me. I am here, I am alive and I thought I should
start laughing and loving again. I thought I would do an album to these
words, because I hadn’t been living these words since she died.
I wrote a song about a man who knows that he is going to die and he is
talking to his wife and he said to her that he wants her to still laugh,
love and live even if he is not there. It was the first song that I
recorded. When I decided to record the song, my mother got cancer and
she was very ill and she died some months later. This song means more to
me after that. I told her that I had written a song, but that it was
about a man. I told her what it was about and she loved it. I dedicated
this album to my wonderful little mother,” she says.
During her concerts Cina Samuelson sings a mixture of her newer songs
and songs from her earlier albums, which have become fan favorites.
In 2008 three of
Cina Samuelson’s songs were placed in the Swedish comedy / drama film
Patrik 1.5.
It was (very exciting). A very good friend of mine was booking me at
that time and he said I have been talking to a guy from a film company
and they are going to do a Swedish movie. They want some Swedish Country
Music. He said they want to hear back from you. I wrote to them and they
said please send us all of the songs that you have, so we can listen to
them. After a couple of weeks
they called me and they said we would love to use three of your songs in
this movie. It was not (the entire) songs, but part of them. I was
invited to the party that they had. We saw the film. We walked on the
red carpet. My sister was with me. They said you can take one person
with you. My husband couldn’t be there with me, so one of my sisters
went with me to Stockholm. It was wonderful to meet all of the people
from the film,” says Samuelson.
In 2012 Cina Samuelson’s third album was released
Fast Road Home.
“There are eleven songs on the album and two of them are duets. After we
recorded the instruments for “You Make Me Feel,” a song that I wrote, I
thought maybe we should do a duet for this song. I said to a friend of
mine that it would be wonderful to do a duet with Bobby Flores. A very
good friend of mine knew him well, so he contacted him and he said to
Bobby we are recording an album here and wondered if you could be the
duet partner on a song. He listened to the song and he said yes I will.
The other (duet) song is a song that I wrote for another album at first.
I had the pleasure to sing and tour with a wonderful man who passed away
last year and I am very sorry for that. His name was Rayburn Anthony. We
met in 2008 and we toured a lot and did Christmas concerts here in
Sweden. We did some summer tours together and I had been his duet
partner on an album that he did. He was recording an album with someone
else and I said to him I have a song here, can you listen to it? I heard
the songs from that album, before it was released and it was a lot of
up-tempo songs. I had written a slow one and I asked if we could do that
one together. I sent the song to him and he listened to it. He said oh
yes Cina this will be a very nice song on this album. We did a duet
called “I’m Sorry.” I wanted to do this song on my own album, so all of
my fans could hear the song too. I was happy and I think we did a good
job together. I love the song,” she says.
The album Roots and Memories
came out in 2014.
“Throughout the years people have asked me a lot of questions about why
Country music. I had been
thinking for a while about doing an album and to record some of the
songs from artists who inspired me, when I was a young girl. They
inspired me to become a Country singer. I wanted to do songs that were
different than all of the other Swedish Country singers did. I really
picked them with my heart. I thought it would be nice to record the
songs, as they did back in the fifties and sixties and with all of the
people in the studio at the same time. I was working in a studio in
Gothenburg and all of the musicians were there. I did all of my singing
at the same time. The only thing we did afterwards was the harmony
singing, because we couldn’t do it at the same time. My duet partners
did their singing afterwards, as well. I sent them the files. It was so
nice to record every instrument at the same time. I hadn’t worked like
that before. We played the songs a few times and then we said okay, we
are going to record. It was just one take and we recorded like that,”
says Cina Samuelson.
Cina Samuelson works with different combinations of musicians in her
touring band, but two people have remained at the core, her husband
Johnny who plays guitar, fiddle and mandolin and her daughter Malin who
sings harmony and plays rhythm guitar.
“One person who is very important to me is my brother Berra (Karlsson),
but a lot of other Country artists want to work with him too, so I have
to fight for him (light laughter),” she says.
It took a year for schedules to match up from both Riveting Riffs
Magazine and Cina Samuelson in order for this conversation to take
place, but it was well worth the wait. She is a talented singer and
songwriter, who if not for her delightful, melodic Swedish accent could
very well be mistaken for being born in the heart of Tennessee or Texas.
She is the real deal.
Please take time
to
visit the website for Cina Samuelson.
Photo Credits: Top two photos by Emelie Samuelson and bottom photo by Malin Samuelson
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Cina
Samuelson’s musical journey began in the small Swedish town of Fristad
near Borås and forty minutes by car, north of Gothenburg. 