Lars O. Carlsson

Swedish saxophonist, flautist, songwriter, arranger, and producer. Born on September 15, 1947 in Varberg, Sweden. He has an education from the Ingesund School of Music in Arvika as music teacher, which he also has worked as for a year in Arvika after his education, before moving to Stockholm. He was 25 years old and started touring with Lasse Holm's band Moonlighters. At the same time, assigned by record company owner Bert Karlsson, he started arranging and producing music for orchestras on Bert Karlsson's label Mariann. The first one, ”Hallå du gamle indian”, written by Lasse Dahlquist, was with the orchestra Jigs in 1972. The song made it to the Swedish charts in that year. His good reputation as producer led to that more orchestras wanted to be produced by him. In 1973, Vikingarna from Arvika contacted him, and it led to a long and fruitful collaboration with 11 000 000 sold records in Sweden between 1973 and to 2008 when the band disbanded. Besides Vikingarna, he has also produced records for Ingmar Nordströms, Matz Bladhs, Curt Haagers, Schytts, and some more well-known Swedish orchestras like Sven-Ingvars, which he has produced two records for, the band's new recordings of some of their greatest hits. All this producing led to that Lars O. Carlsson stopped his own touring already in 1974, but he has besides the producing also worked as a studio musician, with his saxophone, and on occasions also as a backing vocalist on recordings. But the production team behind the ABBA tours in Europe and in Australia managed to enlist him to be a part of the backing musicians behind ABBA on their tours in 1977. As a producer, Lars O. Carlsson has received 93 gold and platinum records. Since a couple of years ago, Lars O. Carlsson has moved back from Stockholm to his hometown Varberg and now plays saxophone with Varbergs Storband, and with some of his friends in a local jazz band from Varberg called Bohemia.