Broadcast
In 1963, Björn's mother Aina entered his group, The West Bay Singers, into an amateur national talent contest - Plats på scen.
It attracted the attention of Bengt Bernhag and Stig Anderson from the recently-formed record company Polar Music, and The West Bay Singers were asked to send a demo tape to Polar Music. Shortly afterwards the West Bay Singers signed with Polar. Bengt and Stig were actually interested in a group who sang in Swedish, so they persuaded the group to enter the contest with a Swedish song. According to Bengt and Stig this would be an advantage as most acts sang in English during those days. They also persuaded the group to change their name to The Hootenanny Singers.
This talent contest, arranged by Sveriges Radio, had gone through a couple of semi-finals on the radio before this semi-final, which was the first to be broadcast on TV. (This programme no longer exists in the SVT archives.)
The Hootenanny Singers performed 'Jag vänter vid
min mila'.
The group and someone called Birgitta Holmner were the acts that were voted
to go on from this group of semi-finalists. In two further semi-finals, held
in November and December, the other acts for the finals (to be held in
January 1964) were to be selected.
The Hootenanny Singers were proclaimed joint winners in the final of
Plats på scen in January 1964.
Jag väntar vid min
mila became their début single and the first hit for both the group and
for Polar Music.
