page_title: Charlie Norman
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Charlie Norman / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: sv:Charlie Norman at the piano with sv:Alice Babs and guitarist sv:Rolf Berg in Sikforsen, 19 August 1954.
context_page_description: Karl-Erik Albert "Charlie" Norman also known as Charles was a Swedish musician and entertainer. Norman is regarded as Sweden's leading boogie-woogie piano player in the 1940s, but also an accomplished all-round pianist. He collaborated with other artists such as Alice Babs and Sickan Carlsson. He wrote scores for a number of films and also starred as an actor in several. His boogie-woogie version of Edvard Grieg's Anitra's Dance earned him some notoriety in Norway.
context_section_description: At the beginning of 1940, Norman was already a skilled boogie-woogie pianist and this musical genre became the most popular of his compositions and it also became his signature. The boogie-woogie style he played in was a success when his first record, Charlies Boogie, was released in 1941.
  When Norman re-arranged Edvard Grieg's classical "Anitras Dance" and renamed it "Anitras Dance Boogie" in 1949, it resulted in a major controversy. The Grieg Foundation in Norway were outraged and said that the performance "violated Grieg's artistic copyright" and his record company, Metronome, was forced to withdraw the remaining copies. By then the record had already sold in excess of 10,000 copies and the "Anitras Dance Boogie" became one of the most requested pieces in Norman's repertoire.
  During the 1940s, Norman made several appearances abroad, including his television debut in Paris in 1947, on a program that also featured the legendary Édith Piaf. In 1949, Norman put together an orchestra to entertain US military personnel at the officer's club in Frankfurt. Starting in 1950, Norman reached a larger audience through his radio shows. He hosted the radio series the Nattugglan (The Night Owl) followed by The Charlie Norman Show and Charlie In School. In 1951, Norman formed a trio with Rolf Berg and Hasse Burman that toured and performed at a number of venues.
  Norman made many recordings with Swedish singer Alice Babs and one of these resulted in Sweden's first gold record. His collaboration with Babs became successful and lasted for years. In 1990, Norman successfully persuaded her to make a comeback after her lengthy retirement to Spain. Norman was one of the artists in the popular radio program Dagens Revy (Today's Revue) along with Gösta Bernhard, Sickan Carlsson and Stig Järrel. In television, Norman contributed to children's programs and the family program Small Town. He wrote many film scores, for both short films and full-length features such as The Pot Travel, You've made your bed... and Dangerous Freedom. He also wrote the score for the American television series, Foreign Intrigue of which 50 episodes were shown in Sweden.
  In addition to being a skilled pianist, Norman also had an excellent sense of humour and he has often been compared to Victor Borge. He wrote most of the material he used in shows. During the 1970s and 1980s Norman teamed up with his son, comedian Lennie Norman and Ronnie Gardiner for ten winter seasons on the Canary Islands where they entertained Swedish tourists. Norman also appeared in restaurant shows at the Berns and Bacchi Wapen restaurants in Stockholm, the restaurant Trädgårn in Gothenburg and Kronprinsen in Malmö. In the 1990s, Norman often played with Robert Wells, a great admirer of Norman's.
caption: Charlie Norman at the piano with Alice Babs and guitarist Roffe Berg in Sikforsen, 19 August 1954.
exif: {}