Translated by Ronny Kleverud

"Hall of Fame" Norwegian Rockers of the Fifties

In Norway at the end of the fifties, there were a lot of Elvis copycats. Every city and small place had their Elvis. A lot of concerts were held and a local champion was chosen, who would then go on to represent their district in NM(Norwegian championship). There were many, both boys and girls who attended.

In "The Hall of Fame" we have included the "Big six". That means the ones who released records, played in movies and toured domestically and abroad. In our clubhouse at Knatten we have collected aprox. 70 pictures in b/w and made a picture gallery. This gives us a good picture of this era and an insight into these artists relations to foreign greats, like between Jahn Rohde and Cliff Richard. NRK(Norwegian television) visited us when they made their documentary on Norwegian rock(Norsk Rocks Historie) and many of our pictures could be seen in the first episode.

All except Jan Rohde participated in the biggest event in 1958 and 1959, the Nordic championship at Jordal Amfi in Oslo. These concerts drew a lot of teenagers and in 1958 it was said to be between twelve and thirteen thousand spectators. Many of which hang on fences and trees around the stadium. Rocke Pelle(Per Hartvig),Per"Elvis"Granberg and Smiling Tommy(Odd Gisløy) represented Norway. It has to be pointed out that they all did very well and "Rocke Pelle" came second. But no one could match the Swedish "Rocke Kungen"Little Gerhard. He stood out as very professional and was big in Scandinavia as well as in Germany. In 1958 he became "Nordens Rocke Konge".

Per "Elvis" the Norwegian fan favorite had a very good stage performance and had Elvis under his skin! "Smiling Tommy" also made a good impression and made a tour which started in Lillehammer ,ending in Langesund. This tour included Nora Brockstedt,Ray Adams(Ragnar Asbjørnsen at the time) and Kjell Karlsens Orchestra. Odd(Smiling Tommy has said it like this;" This was great, and the fan letters poured in, even from England.

The year after, it was Roald Stensby,Per"Elvis" and "Little Sophus"(Jan Erik Heyerdahl Hoff) who were to defend the Norwegian honours and Roald Stensby won. This became his big year and he created such chaos in Denmark that Cliff Richard was not allowed to perform there a few weeks later, as they could not handle such chaos. Per "Elvis" was as always very good and went to Sweden to record albums. He released an EP in the fall of 1959 and an EP in early 1960. "Little Sophus" came fourth in "Nordisk Mesterskap" which was very good, but seen as a defeat by himself. This because only weeks before he had been chosen "Oslo Mester" ahead of the mentioned Roald Stensby. A little later he was in a documentary with Per"Elvis" called "Oslo,ungdommens by". In this movie he sings "You're sixteen" the only known song recorded by "Little Sophus". And that song is included in one of our Cds.

Our cd collection contains the following songs by Norwegian rockers of the fifties:

Odd Gisløy "Smiling Tommy" 2 songs

Per "Elvis" Granberg 13 songs

"Little Sophus"(Jahn Erik Heyerdahl Hoff 2 songs

"Rocke Pelle"(Per Hartvig) 14 songs

Jan Rohde 11 songs

Roald Stensby 10 songs

Jahn Rohde did not participate in the Nordic championship, but after his record release and the Oslo championship he went to England and toured with Cliff and the Shadows. Jan also released a very good 7`inch in England which was included at Radio Luxembourg's Top 16 list.

Today we can't say that this is only rock history. but culture history as well. Now that rock has become house warm. it has also become part of mainstream culture. Something that Norway's first rockers couldn't have foreseen when they were ridiculed by the media and hated by the fans parents at the time.