Arne Bendiksen

Biography
Considered the ‘father of pop music in Norway’, Arne Bendiksen started his career in music as a member of the group The Monn Keys in the 1950s; later, he made his mark as a solo singer as well. From the 1960s onwards, he focused on song writing and producing, for example for his main protégés in the 1960s, Wenche Myhre and Kirsti Sparboe; he formed a record company of his own in 1964. Amongst the most famous songs he composed are ‘Jeg vil ha en blå ballong’ and ‘La meg være ung’; this last song was sung by Wenche Myhre in the 1964 Norwegian Eurovision pre-selection.

Ironically enough, this pre-selection was won by… Bendiksen himself; he performed a song written by Sigurd Jansen and Egil Hagen called ‘Spiral’. Bendiksen went on to represent his native country in the contest proper of 1964 in Copenhagen, where he came eight; his conductor that night was Karsten Andersen. In the 1960s and 1970s, Bendiksen participated in the Norwegian heats as a composer on countless occasions; his creations won in 1966 (‘Intet er nytt under solen’, sung in the Eurovision Song Contest by Åse Kleveland, third place), 1969 (‘Oj, oj, oj så glad, jeg skal bli’, sung in the contest by Kirsti Sparboe, sixteenth place), 1971 (‘Lykken er’, sung in the contest by Hanne Krogh, seventeenth place), and 1973 (‘It’s just a game’, sung in the contest by The Bendik Singers, seventh place). In 1971, there was nobody available to conduct the Eurovision orchestra for Norway; that is why Arne Bendiksen, although he had not written the orchestration and did not feel confident at all about his conducting skills, had to do it himself.

In due course, a more extensive biography of Arne Bendiksen will be published on this website