Travellin' Strawberries

Travellin' Strawberries is a Norwegian group mostly known for their performance in a Norwegian Christmas series known as The Julekalender. The linup consists of Ivar Gafseth, Tore Johansen and Erling Mylius. The group's name is a reference to the supergroup Traveling Wilburys and the song "Strawberry Fields Forever" by The Beatles. Based in Trøndelag, Norway, Gafseth, Johansen and Mylius were the principal songwriters of the freakbeat group Difference, which reached the height of its popularity in the late 1960's. In the early 1990's, the group wrote and performed a stage show called Strawberry Fields Forever, a "rock fable" concerning The Beatles, Difference and John Lennon at Trøndelag Teater, which became a huge local success. In 1993, they began performing an abridged version of the show on tour, and from then on, the group became known as Travellin' Strawberries. The band's success and talent was noted by higher-ups in the entertainment industry and they were hired to write and star in a Norwegian localization of the successful Danish Christmas series known as The Julekalender. The songs for the original Danish version were written by De Nattergale. These were re-recorded by Travellin' Strawberries for the Norwegian adaptation, and as such, the lyrics were changed to accommodate the Norwegian script. A running joke throughout the television series was that the three protagonists of the story, three nisser (a Norwegian equivalent to Santa's elves) spoke a language that was a blend of English and Norwegian. This element was also written into the songs. First shown in 1994, The television show itself became a huge success, as did the accompanying soundtrack: the song "The Støvel Dance" (The Boot Dance) became an oft-requested radio single, and the soundtrack album Songs from THE JULEKALENDER eventually gained the #1 spot in the Norwegian album charts and it eventually became a triple Platinum record, by Norwegian standards. The group would later tour Norway with a stage show based loosely on the series . In 1997, the group's second television series, Prinsesse Gullhår og de tre ekte menn, was released; however, it did not become the success that The Julekalender had been. The accompanying soundtrack album spent one week on the official album charts before disappearing.