Arthur Kylander

Arthur Kylander (1892–1968) was a Finnish-American singer, songwriter and mandolin player.[1]

Arthur Kylander [1]
Born
Arthur Arkadius Kylander

February 16, 1892
Lieto, Finland
Died1968
Occupationsinger, songwriter, musician
Spouse(s)Julia Varila

Biography

Born in Lieto, Finland, Kylander immigrated to the United States in 1914 at the age of twenty-two. There he became an itinerant laborer and worked as a carpenter and logger.

In 1925 he met his future wife Julia Varila, a pianist and accordionist with whom he began performing and touring. During the Depression the Kylanders moved to Hollywood, California, where Julia worked as a cook and Arthur was a butler and chauffeur. In 1943 they bought 240 acres of wooded land near Placerville, California and started a tree farm.[2] In 1964 Kylander was named the Outstanding Conservation Rancher of the Year.[3]

Music

Between 1927 and 1929 Kylander released twenty songs on the Victor label.[4] He also published several songbooks with the title of Humoristisia Lauluja (Comic Songs).[5]

His repertoire included Kulkuri (The Hobo), Muistojen Valssi (The Waltz of Memories) and Suomalainen ja Sauna (The Finn and the Sauna). A member of the Industrial Workers of the World, many of Kylander's songs dealt with the hardships facing immigrant workers while retaining a strong sense of wit and humor.[5] He sang in a mixture of Finnish and Finglish in a manner similar to his contemporary, Hiski Salomaa.[6]

Since the 1970s, Arthur Kylander's recordings have been reissued in both analog and digital formats.[6][7][8]

gollark: When in doubt, base64-encode base64-encoded base64.
gollark: You just happened to be really unlucky.
gollark: Look, placing them such that there were no overlaps would have required either lots of complex maths or a lot of gaps.
gollark: Chat must be given to the masses somehow.
gollark: Well, ***sorry***...

References
  1. Arthur Kylander. fi.wikipedia.org. Retrieved: March 12, 2013.
  2. Arthur Kylander, Finnish-American Folksinger. Archived 2012-02-16 at the Wayback Machine fingerlakesfinns.org. Retrieved: March 12, 2013.
  3. Mountain Democrat December 17, 1964.
  4. Ethnic Music on Records by Richard K. Spottswood, (University of Illinois Press, 1990) Volume 5, pp. 2581-2582.
  5. Songs about Work by Richard A Reuss and Archie Green, (Bloomington: Folklore Institute, Indiana University, 1993) pp. 268-271.
  6. Siirtolaisen Muistoja (The Immigrant's Memories) (Helsinki: Finnish RCA, 1978).
  7. Oi kuinka engeliksi mielin (We'll be angels by and by) (Kaustinen: The Folk Music Institute), 1994).
  8. Stranded in the USA (Munich: Trikont, 2004).

Book excerpt

Discography

Videos

Streaming audio

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