FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL đŸ›«đŸŒđŸ“șđŸ“œ️🏈. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'

Beautiful Stockholm at night, looking west towards Gamla Stan

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

On Wednesday you'll be thanking me for introducing you to ANOTHER amazing singer from Sweden: Cecilia Nilsson, a.k.a Cissi or "See See"; Cecilia will sing two songs LIVE on Radio P4 Gavleborg on Friday at 15:30; @CissiNilssonn, @andreasjismark, #inmyroom


Cecilia Nilsson YouTube Channel video: 50 seconds of Cecilia Nilsson singing her first single, "In My Room." Uploaded May 10, 2013. http://youtu.be/0SjBQnl1FNU
Written by Cecilia Nilsson & Andreas Mattsson

Sunday brought some very positive and interesting news from Sweden concerning a Friend of the Blog, Andreas Jismark
So good, in fact, that he also shared the news via his Twitter feed, shown below.

The good news concerns a very talented young female singer from GĂ€vle who's part of his talented music stable, and whose first single will officially be released on Wednesday.


To prime the public interest in her, Andreas has teased us, Sweden and the larger world with a clip featuring some of the first single. 

Not too much, lest we get a sugar rush or brain freeze, but just enough to give us a taste and keep us interested in seeing how the story ends on onsdag, Wednesday.
Mañana!

Andreas wrote...




This bit of news follows closely on the heels of the blog post that Andreas had written back on April 29th titled, quite cleverly, Goodbye, See See, Hello Cecilia Nilsson, which detailed some of the very hard work over the past two years that she's put in to make this moment possible.
http://andreasjismark.se/goodbye-see-see-hello-cecilia-nilsson/

Last Fall, some months before I traveled to Stockholm in January and met with Andreas and another great music talent whom he manages, the amazing Anni Bernhard, i.e Full of Keys, whom you'll be hearing more about in the coming days here at the blog, I'd watched this video of Cecilia quite a number of times, since by now you all know how much I love context.
I was looking for clues and hints of things to come.

As it happens, the video is in Swedish, but I still think you'll enjoy it as she speaks about herself and her music interests and desire to write songs that are honest and that will connect with people.

It was recorded mostly at her home in GĂ€vle, a very middle-class Swedish city in the best possible sense of the word, and one that I've written about a few times here in the past, which has not always had the easiest go of things.

Just like growing-up or living in Baltimore or Pittsburgh or Indianapolis makes you a little more in-touch with the rest of the country than would be true in Santa Monica or Bethesda or Brookline, her town is a much-more accurate barometer of daily life in Sweden than many of the sweet upscale neighborhoods in Stockholm that I spent a lot of time in back in January.

Places where money and some degree of influence often helps keep some social problems at bay a little bit longer than it does in GĂ€vle, where you take life as it is.

To me, at least, that means that any songs Cecilia writes and sings will be much more in-tune with the average listener's personal experiences than if she'd been born or raised in Södermalm, and had parents who pushed her around in one of those amazing $800-plus German prams they sell at Nordiska Kompaniet, which I spent some time eye-balling on my last day in Stockholm.

That came after I'd spent time walking at night from my hotel, The Omena in Norrmalm, down to the Royal Palace and then headed back to the hotel via the KungstrĂ€dgĂ„rden ice skating rink one last time and then the central downtown business district.

NK has an entire area of the store on the 4th Floor not just dedicated to upscale Kids, but to what seemed to be designer baby strollers, complete with a video showing German soccer Moms putting them thru their paces in Frankfurt.

(And do the well-educated Moms ever love to show those prams and their babies off at their nearby coffee shops! Or even the "Social Media" McDonalds I was at.
That is a whole 'nother blog post entirely -upscale Swedish soccer Moms!
They were everywhere! 
Not that I was complaining. )

And, now that it occurs to me, this film was recorded back when Cecilia's hair was much-longer than it currently is, which I know causes her some small distress, something I know about and recognize from having grown-up with two attractive younger sisters with beautiful long hair.


Andreas Jismark YouTube Channel video: See See (Presentation). Uploaded September 5, 2012. http://youtu.be/0syxcoAblN8

Some of Cecilia's hard work and preparation came just a few weeks ago when she spent some time over in Gotland, where Andreas lives, where she rehearsed and even performed at Hammersmith Odeon Visby, which you'll recall is also where Anni/Full of Keys performed, as I mentioned here on the blog at the time.

There was a nice article on Cecilia that appeared in one of the local Gotland papers at the time of her trip and it includes a nice photo of her and the band rehearsing, including Andreas on guitar, which Cecilia also plays.


StjÀrnskott i Visby i helgen (Shooting stars in Visby this weekend)
http://www.helagotland.se/nyheter/artikel.aspx?articleid=8210085

One of the quotes I love is where Andreas, a music veteran in all sorts of important ways -as a performer, teacher, promoter, producer and manager- says the following:
Jag har aldrig stött pÄ en elev som ens Àr 30-40 procent sÄ bra som Cissi, sÀger han.
which means that he's never worked with anyone who has even 30-40% of Cissi's natural singing talent and ability, which is really quite something to say for this lover of all things Depeche Mode.

The article headline is a reference to Cecilia being a "shooting star" and encouraging people to come and see her perform now while they can in such an intimate atmosphere, before she hits it big in show biz.

Here's another photo of her and the band rehearsing that same day that's on her Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=151245411721188&set=a.151245378387858.1073741830.149873478525048&type=1&theater
and later at Hammersmith's:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=151245571721172&set=a.151245378387858.1073741830.149873478525048&type=1&theater

I last mentioned Cecilia Nilsson -a.k.a. Cissi or "See See"- in my April 9, 2013 blog post titled, If Miriam Bryant isn't on your musical radar yet, she ought to be ;)  Miriam Bryant - Push Play (Official), Finders Keeper (Official); @MiriamBryant
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/if-miriam-bryant-isnt-on-your-musical.html
wherein I wrote:
Miriam, from Göthenberg, had a gig on Friday in TranĂ„s at Babar, as did another young singing dynamo from GĂ€vle I've been keeping close tabs on by the name of See See -a.k.a. Cissi Nilsson- pictured below, whom I'll be writing about in more detail soon.So much sheer musical talent in Sweden, it's hard to believe sometimes! 



Andreas was actually able to record one of the songs Cecilia performed in TranĂ„s at Babar before Miriam came onstage to perform later, and it's a tune some of you might recognize:


Andreas Jismark YouTube Channel video: Cecilia Nilsson "Never Let You Go" -LIVE at Babar in TranÄs, Sweden. April 5, 2013. Uploaded April 6, 2013.
http://youtu.be/xVmsUZCpJqI


Here's a nice newspaper article on Cecilia that ran on Friday in her local newspaper, Arbetarbladet, which has done quite a number of stories on her over the past few years as she's sung and performed at many events all over the area, and developed quite a great reputation with a killer voice:
Hur kĂ€nns det att slĂ€ppa en singel? (How do you feel about your first single coming out?)
http://arbetarbladet.se/noje/musik/1.5861796-hur-kanns-det-att-slappa-en-singel-

Friday, Fredag, Friday, Fredag...
For those of you reading this in Sweden -or elsewhere, but who want to check her out via the InternetCecilia will be performing two songs LIVE on Sveriges Radio, specifically, Radio P4 Gavleborg, on Friday at 15:30 Swedish Time, which is 9:30 a.m. Eastern U.S./Canada.

Please take a listen to her via http://sverigesradio.se/gavleborg/ and let me know what you think.

But if you miss her, you WILL be able to listen to Cecilia here on the blog at some point soon, because one of the very best things about Sveriges Radio is that they make almost everything they air available online, and best of all, with embeddable code for blogs and websites.

(You longtime readers of the blog will recall that I've posted lots of SR audio material here in the past for Timoteij, Full of Keys, First Aid Kit and other singing artists, as well as various pieces they've done on Melodisfestivalen.)

So, even if you miss her, I'll have her right here where you can take a listen just as soon as it's humanly possible, more than likely, this weekend.

Wednesday morning update:


Cecilia Nilsson - In My Room (Complete Song)



Cecilia Nilsson YouTube Channel: Cecilia Nilsson -In My Room. This is Cecilia's debut single. Uploaded May 13, 2013. http://youtu.be/r3MUHpMTAao

Cissi's new single is available on both iTunes and Spotify.

There's just no substitute for sheer talent!
And when you add a great work ethic to that, the sky is the limit.
-----
More info at: https://www.facebook.com/cecilianilssonofficial
http://instagram.com/cecilianilssonofficial
@CissiNilssonn
https://twitter.com/CissiNilssonn

Andreas Jismark Management 
http://andreasjismark.se
@andreasjismark -https://twitter.com/andreasjismark 
http://www.youtube.com/user/JismarkManagement