Anita Hegerland

Anita Hegerland (born 3 March 1961 in Sandefjord), is a Norwegian singer famous for her childhood career in Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and subsequent vocal contributions to Mike Oldfield's work, among others.

Her career is both historic and unique. She is one of the best-selling solo singers in Norway, with sales of more than 7 million albums and singles. Her songs have been released on nearly 23 million albums worldwide.

Hegerland had the biggest hit in Germany of any Norwegian artist ever, in front of Lene Nystrøm (AQUA), Marit Larsen, Madcon and A-HA.

For more than 20 years she had the record in Sweden as the singer who was the longest on Svensktoppen, the main music charts.

Biography

Hegerland was discovered at age 8 by Fredrik Friis during a Christmas show where she was performing.^[1] Hegerland's musical career took off in 1970 with "Mitt sommarlov" (transl: My Summer Vacation) in the Scandinavian countries. It spent 22 weeks on Norway's singles chart, with two weeks at #1, and the song was also a #1 hit in Sweden. In 1971 she released a single with German artist Roy Black; "Schön ist es auf der Welt zu sein (It's beautiful to be in the world)" in German-speaking countries. The song was recorded both with German and Norwegian vocals. It sold over 2 million copies (of which more than 1.3 million came from Germany),^[1] and spent 30 weeks on the singles chart (top peak #3) in Norway.

In total she had four different albums on the Norwegian chart as a child star. The last one was released in 1973 (when she was 12 years old). She participated in the Norwegian final (for entry to the Eurovision Song Contest 1971), but did not win. She continued as a pop singer in Germany and Scandinavia for several years and then pursued an adult vocal career.

She met British musician Mike Oldfield while performing on his non-album single "Pictures in the Dark" in 1985. She sings on two of his biggest hit songs: "Pictures In The Dark" and "Innocent" on his 1980s albums, Islands and Earth Moving. She has two children with Oldfield, Greta and Noah,^[2] and until recently lived on Nesøya island near Oslo with her partner, Jock Loveband. In 1999, their daughter Kaja was born.

Hegerland released a new album called Starfish in 2011, a pop/rock album produced by Ronni Le Tekrø (TNT). This album was no 1 for 39 weeks between 21st Nov 2011 and 21 Nov 2012, on Meteli.net, Finland's most comprehensive downloading list with 12 million songs. This was on the Norwegian List with more than 38,000 songs including all the best selling ones and 3400 Norwegian singers/bands. "Starfish" was also high up on both the Top 500 International List and the Top 100 International Rock List also at Meteli.net.

References

External links

• Anita Hegerland at the Internet Movie Database