Together with Åke Söhr I started Dollar Records in 1965. At that time I worked as a producer at Cupol Grammofon AB in Stockholm. Åke (dead since 1995) was then a well known singer and musician mostly working in Stockholm. He recorded for Cupol and was a friend of Helge Roundqvist, the owner of the company. This friendship made it possible for us to distribute the Dollar label through Cupol and as I was working there, I could keep an eye on the distribution.
The first Dollar records were cut at Borgarskolan (a secondary school) in Stockholm, where a small studio was located. The owner was an engineer, Erik Lundberg. The control room was situated on the third floor and there was no lift. The artists and the groups stood on a small stage on the first floor. The producer kept in touch with them by a local phone and was actually looking down on the musicians through a small window. In the control room there was a two-track tape recorder, a reverb effect and a mixer. The background music was recorded on one track and the vocals on the other. To listen to the recorded tracks the singer had to go to the control room. When the singer had climbed the stairs three or four times, he/she was so exhausted he/she couldn't sing any more. That's one of the reasons cutting a record was so fast at Borgarskolan. Two or three vocal takes on one song were very common.
Among the first Dollar recordings made at this studio were The Madmen, The Teddy Bears and Jack And The Rippers. The first pressing of each record was around two hundred copies. The group bought some records to sell and Cupol distributed the rest.
Since 1962 I have been an active songwriter on and off. I have often worked with my friend Jörgen Sjöstedt (Jim Slim). As we wrote most of our songs in English, we decided to use pen names. Jörgen found Burt Clinton for me and I made up Jim Slim for him.
Songs we wrote for Dollar Records (sometimes together with group members) were for example Alfred E Goes Surfin' (text), Rambler (ordered by the car company) (text), I'm Too Young, I'm The Richest and Waiting For You Baby . Rambler was recorded in an instrumental version and released in England. We also contracted the English group The Micros Of Oxford and they recorded two of our songs for the Cupol-owned Nashville label.
The recording career of an artist Christer Sjögren, who later was to be one of the most famous in Scandinavia, started on the Dollar label. On March 13 th, 1968, Jupiters from Hagfors came to the Dieke Studio outside Stockholm. They were going to cut a single. Thomas Strandberg was recording engineer and I produced. When Christer, their lead singer, started singing we immediately heard that he was something extra.
Jan-Åke Asp was good friend of mine from Örebro, my hometown. He helped Åke Söhr and me to find new artists, write songs and produce records. Jan-Åke was at that time a journalist at a local newspaper at Örebro and had good opportunities to make publicity for our artists. Together with me he started Upward Production. In 1968 he moved to Canada, and our co-operation finished.
In 1969 the last Dollar record was released. We had made sixty-eight singles, seventeen EP's and one LP. However, one of the singles was released on the Starway label. In 1970 we sold Dollar Records to Amigo Musikproduktion AB. The rights to Dollar Records/Dollar Music is now own by Bonnieramigo, Stockholm.
Norrköping 041229
Lars E. Carlsson (Burt Clinton)