Jan Hammarlund is a Swedish singer in seven languages. Since emerging on the scene in Sweden in 1972, Jan’s songs of struggle, liberation, and love have garnered him the admiration of acoustic music fans and activists all over Scandinavia, the USA, and Latin America. His debut in 1972, a naivistic hippie-oriented album, was followed by one somewhat more political, and his third, for Chile, was released to make money for the resistance against Pinochet’s tyranny and to introduce Sweden to Violeta Parra. He also became a great fan of Malvina Reynolds, writer of Little Boxes and 600 other songs, some of which he recorded. In 1977 Jan Hammarlund came out as the first public gay artist in Sweden, recording various powerful gay songs through the end of the ’70s onwards, most importantly Ville. His greatest success as a songwriter is Jag vill leva i Europa, a love declaration to the continent, if not necessarily to EU. He recorded French cabaret songs and Brecht’s poems in the classical musical settings by Eisler and Weill. He has performed in England, the USA, Chile, and Uruguay. As a songwriter, Jan Hammarlund is more than a musical storyteller – he’s a singing historian. You’ll find songs about a labor massacre in Ådalen in 1931, about Jerusalem, a city under siege by three monotheistic religions, about Franz Schubert’s struggle for his life and his art in 19th century Vienna, about fearless union leaders, and a dog's life on Palestine’s West Bank. Photo: Jeanette Andersson