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Povel Ramel

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Baron [Povel Ramel] ([Media helphelp]·[info]) (born 1 June, 1922, in Östermalm in Stockholm) is a Swedish entertainer. He is a singer, vaudeville artist, composer, and songwriter, and has written over 1,000 songs.

Contents

Early life

Povel Ramel was born in Östermalm in Stockholm 1922. His father, Karl Ramel, was a lawyer and the family was wealthy. Karl Ramel used to take Povel on vacations occasionally.

When Povel Ramel was young he stepped on a nail while visiting a beach. The nail went through his foot. Ramel was not expected to survive, but he recovered. The operation was very costly, not without complications, and not very successful. He still has problems with his foot.

After this incident, Ramel went on trips to his father's house and to a hut owned by his father and some friends. The hut was in a forest by a lake.

Ramel did not enjoy school. He preferred to go to Skansen and observe the animals there, as long as it was not very cold, then he went to Skansen's Monkey house. Ramel's teachers kept track of his absences in a book. Ramel told his teachers that he had accidentally dropped his book which contained his attendance record. Then Ramel showed only the old book to his parents.

One day his father found Ramel at Skansen with the monkeys. Ramel tried many schools but was unsatisfied with all of them.

In 1937 Ramel was in a car with his parents. He was sitting in the back seat when another car hit the front of the vehicle. Ramel's mother, Märta Tesch, died the following day at a hospital. His father died some months later following medical procedures that may have been malpractice.

Career

Ramel moved to his aunt's house, Else Virgin. At first wanted to become a painter and went to art school. That did not last very long though. He then realized that he loved music. Entering Aftonbladet's competition, Vi som vill opp 1939, Ramel sang and yawned while performing a song he had written, En sömning serenad (A sleepy serenade). Ramel was a prolific songwriter at this time. His aunt wrote the lyrics to one of his songs. It has been released on the record, En vår utan dej (A spring without you).

Ramel's songs are noted for their humor and drastic wordplay. He has written at least one song in English, "The Sukiyaki Syndrome", about a visit in a Japanese restaurant.

His first hit was in 1944 with his song "Johanssons boogie-woogie-vals" (Johansson's boogie woogie waltz). At first, though, it seemed not a success at all. Swedish Music Information Centre STIM investigated the pay of the artists who performed on the record. Due to that, the record had a label on it which said the songs could not receive airplay. The sales for the record were dismal. But one of Ramel's friends at the Record archive let a radio station have a copy of the record. This record had the label pulled off. Subsequently, sales jumped.

In 1952 Ramel and Felix Alvo started the company Knäppupp AB. For many years, the Knäppupp vaudevilles became a beloved part of Swedish entertainment. The first vaudeville was "Akta Huvet" (Mind your head) because Ramel made his entrance through a cableway from the roof over the stage. The show opened at the Cirkus theatre in Gothenburg in 1952. Knäppupp AB also produced a number of movies (for example, "Ratataa" in 1956). Ramel also put on several pub-shows (for example, "Karamelodier"). The word is one of Ramel's typical puns, as the word karamelodier is a combination of the words "karamell" (bon-bon), Ramel and "melodier" (melodies).

Some of his most famous songs

References of today

Not many of Ramel's songs are references to what's happening in the world at the moment. Even though, there are some examples:

The Karamelodiktstipendiet

In 1983 Ramel founded the Karamelodiktstipendiet, a prize annually awarded to a Swedish entertainer or group of entertainers. The prize is presented by Ramel in the Hagaparken in Stockholm. The name of the prize is a pun similar to the one described above, referring to "karamell" and Ramel; "dikt" in Swedish means poem and "stipendie" scholarship. Thus the recipient is not only awarded a monetary prize, but also a bag of bon-bons and a poem written by Ramel himself.

Winners:

Bibliography - Not complete

Filmography - Selected examples

Radio Shows

Television (partial)

The

External Links in English

 

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