Kim Larsen (1945-2018) – the much loved Danish rock musician and multi-artist – captures – in music and words – the Danish soul. With his 500 recorded songs and 40 albums he is known by all Danes of all ages.

Guitarist, and head of guitar department at The Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen, Jesper Sivebæk, had two heroes in his youth: Andrés Segovia and Kim Larsen – and they have followed him ever since.

For more than 10 years Jesper Sivebæk has worked on the pieces on this album. With his great experience he uses the possibilities of the guitar to the utmost, and follows the classical tradition of making instrumental versions of folk songs – like in Miguel Llobet’s arrangements of Catalan folksongs, in Benjamin Britten’s English and Chinese folksongs arrangements, and in Béla Bartók’s Hungarian folk songs. Sivebæk is true both to the beauty and the simplicity of Kim Larsen’s songs, and to his instrument – the classical Spanish guitar. In these arrangements classical guitar players around the globe now have 12 new pieces to discover and put on their concert programmes.

“Kim Larsen was unrivalled at taking the big moments and feelings of existence and converting them into music and lyrics in a playful, direct language that Danes loved. In his songs we were able to mirror ourselves and be precisely the Danes we wanted to be: free and brazen, wilful and provocative, but also poetic and elegant, sensitive and standing shoulder to shoulder with those struggling in society.

“It is also striking that because the Danes’ favourite artist had so many roles and forms of expression, people in Denmark often underestimate his perhaps most important capacity: that of a composer. Thanks to Sivebæk’s fine versions of some of the melodies, they can now stand beautifully and pure in their own right – without being ‘packaged’ in all the commotion and mythology that surrounded Kim Larsen.

“It does justice to the melodies to stand alone in the company of a guitar with all that they have to offer in the way of sadness (‘Masser af succes’/Lots of succes and ‘Der er en sang’/There is a Song) as well as ear-catching ‘mood-spreaders’ (‘Himlen’/Heaven, ‘Kom igen’/Come again, ‘Flyvere i natten’/Planes in the Night, ‘Om lidt’/In a moment and ‘Kvinde min’/Lady,oh,lady) or the more ‘party-like’ numbers (such as ‘Hvis din far gi’r dig lov’/If your dad says OK, ‘Joanna’ or ‘Susan Himmelblå’). Just image if the impossible will happen, that Jesper Sivebæk manages to teach Danes new things about their great singer: that he was also a fabulously good composer, one that could rub shoulders with the classical world. That would surely please Kim Larsen, who in my last of many interviews with him said this to me: ‘I have started to listen to classical music in my old age, which is pretty classic in itself, isn’t it? Albinoni, for example – he wrote some pretty groovy hits.’ Precisely like Larsen’s own songs, one could add. But that is superfluous.”
– Erik Jensen