Lea Riders Group was a Swedish band with roots in

Borgholm Borgholm () is a city and the seat of Borgholm Municipality, Kalmar County, Sweden with 4,401 inhabitants in 2020. It is located on the island of Öland in the Baltic Sea, at the Kalmar Strait-side of Öland, north of Färjestaden. Borgholm is o ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. The band formed in 1961 when Hawkey Franzén started the Red River Band, a trio consisting of a drummer, accordionist and

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

player, along with two of his friends. Additional members were added and after 1963, the Red River Band changed its name to Lea Riders Group. Many members came and went but founder and frontman Hawkey Franzén was the constant member in the band's lineup. After playing in schools and party places on the island of

Öland Öland (, ; ; sometimes written ''Oland'' internationally) is the second-largest Swedish island and the smallest of the traditional provinces of Sweden. Öland has an area of and is located in the Baltic Sea just off the coast of Småland. ...

, in

Kalmar Kalmar (, , ) is a city in the southeast of Sweden, situated by the Baltic Sea. It had 41,388 inhabitants in 2020 and is the seat of Kalmar Municipality. It is also the capital of Kalmar County, which comprises 12 municipalities with a total of ...

, the rest of

Småland Småland () is a historical Provinces of Sweden, province () in southern Sweden. Småland borders Blekinge, Scania, Halland, Västergötland, Östergötland and the island Öland in the Baltic Sea. The name ''Småland'' literally means "small la ...

Blekinge Blekinge () is one of the traditional Swedish provinces (), situated in the southern coast of the geographic region of Götaland, in southern Sweden. It borders Småland, Scania and the Baltic Sea. It is the country's second-smallest provin ...

and

Östergötland Östergötland (; English exonym: East Gothland) is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish) in the south of Sweden. It borders Småland, Västergötland, Närke, Södermanland and the Baltic Sea. In older English li ...

, the band got an opportunity to play in

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

in 1966. There they quickly built a name among students and youth, and the group became a popular

indie band Independent music (also commonly known as indie music, or simply indie) is a broad style of music characterized by creative freedoms, low-budgets, and a do-it-yourself approach to music creation, which originated from the liberties afforded by in ...

before the term had even been coined. Their first television appearance was in autumn 1966, when a live performance directed by Stefan Jarl and Jan Lindqvist was shown on SVT. A number of singles were recorded and released by

Philips Records Philips Records is a record label founded by Netherlands, Dutch electronics company Philips and in 1999 was absorbed into Netherlands, Dutch-United States, American music corporation Universal Music Group. It was founded as Philips Phonograph ...

. It would once again collaborate with Jarl and Lindqvist when Lea Riders Group got to record some of the soundtrack to the film '' Dom Kallar Oss Mods''. (''"They Call Us Misfits"'' in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

). Jarl and Lindqvist's choices for recording the soundtrack was between Lea Riders Group and a similar band called Baby Grandmothers. However the main theme was written and recorded by Lee Riders group that later was appearing on lists all around Europe. In the middle of 1968, most of the members deemed that gigs and jams were not going to move the band forward, and Franzén dissolved the group in May of that year. The band Made in Sweden was formed from the remnants of Lea Riders Group by Bo Häggström and Slim Borgudd.

Music

The Lea Rider Group's original instruments were replaced rather quickly to the more typical

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

/ keyboards and

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica incl ...

. Despite this change, the band still occasionally played the

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

as the unusual instrument was well-liked by Franzén. The band had a broad song catalog and mixed many different styles of music during its relatively short career. They became famous in Sweden and abroad, as a "raw, gritty and authentic blues and R&B group" in the style of similar blues-oriented

British Invasion The British Invasion was a cultural phenomenon of the mid-1960s, when Rock music, rock and pop music acts from the United Kingdom and other aspects of Culture of the United Kingdom, British culture became popular in the United States with sign ...

bands and American

garage band Garage rock (sometimes called garage punk or 60s punk) is a raw and energetic style of rock music that flourished in the mid-1960s, most notably in the United States and Canada, and has experienced a series of subsequent revivals. The style is ...

s such as

The Chocolate Watchband The Chocolate Watchband is an American garage rock band that formed in 1965 in Los Altos, California. The band went through several lineup changes during its existence. Combining psychedelic and garage rock components, their sound was marked by ...

. The band's music also had

psychedelic Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary mental states (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips") and a perceived "expansion of consciousness". Also referred to as classic halluci ...

elements, pop influences and more melodic pieces.

Discography

Lea Riders Group never released any studio albums during the group's active years. The group's live radio recordings, however, were saved and an LP of live material and studio recordings were issued in 1989 on the small record label Garageland Records. The same material was released on CD in 1998.

Singles

*"Lost Love" / "Tryin" (1966) *"Got No Woman" / "But I Am, and Who Cares?" (1966) *"The Situation's Rare" / "Key To The Riddle" (1967) *"Is it Not Strange?" / "Beloved Baby" (1967) *"The Forgotten Generation" / "Dom Kallar Oss Mods" ("They Call Us Misfits") (1968)

Albums

*''Lea Riders Group - The Forgotten Generation'' (LP 1989, CD 1998)

References

External links

Hawkey Franzén's Lea Riders Group pageProgg.se - Hawkey Franzén page
{{Authority control Swedish rock music groups Musical groups established in 1961 1961 establishments in Sweden Musical groups from Kalmar County