Europes hardest working blues-rock band!?
26 years, 15 albums and 4.000 gigs all over the world
SKY HIGH started in Gothenburg on the Swedish west-coast a late november night almost 26 years ago.
The venue was ”Errolls” , the punk-music place of the town. The band was an offspin of the six-piece blues-rock
outfit ”Yngves Orkester”, which was a bunch of early middleaged mens excuse to party and rock out every once in a
while…
It was during such a gig the pianist of the band, now world famous hammond B3 player, Pierre Sward told guitarist
Clas Yngstrom to do a trio set so that he could get into a deeper conversation with a young and bautiful woman who
he had just met….the rest is history / Clas , drummer Uffe Ahman and bassist Borje Olvald went up and played a set
that tore the roof off that building.
Soon the band was known all over the northern parts of Europe – One great early hi-lite was the groups astonishing
performance at the Jimi Hendrix memory fest at Paradiso Club in Amsterdam , september 1980. At the end of
the trio’s set, which was a total tribute to Jimi Hendrix, The Experience’s former drummer Mitch Mitchell rushed to
the stage to join the band for a burning jam-session that concluded the fest. English music paper ”Melody Maker”
raved about Sky High’s performance dubbing it the absolute peak of the festival.
ZZ-Top were instrumental in Sky High’s breakthrough in Europe. With the longbearded Texans eager support the
band got a proffessionally made rock/video for their smash hit track ”I Ain’t Beggin” which charged it’s way up to
the top of many European hitlists in the mid-eighties. ZZ and Sky High had met accidentally when both bands were
gigging in Oslo early 1981. Billy Gibbons of ZZ even offered Sky High to play support for them during the Europen
leg of the Eliminatour tour – unfortunately the bands manager didn’t approve, meaning that Sky High might blow the
noble Texas gentlemen off the stage….
In the summer of 1987 Sky High played support for rock originator Chuck Berry in Europe – mr Berry apparantly
enjoyed the band as he promptly invited them to play the prestigeous New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival the
following year . During the same tour, in april –88, the band also made it to play NYC’s legendary CB/GB’s in the
lower east side of Manhattan Another gem of that trip was a show at the classic “Steamboat” club on Austin, Texas’s,
6’th street - the same venue where the late great Texas guitarslinger Stevie Ray Vaughan once made a name for
himself.
at a local bakery - La Grange, Texas, April 1988
Stevie-Ray and Clas had a meeting during a soundcheck at the Jazz-fest in New–Orleans, where Stevie let Clas try
out his guitars and the two had a nice conversation about equipment, music and life in general. Later that nite the
whole band was specially invited to watch Stevie and Double Trouble’s show on a Misissippi river boat – the thrill
was definitely not gone when mr BB King AND the fantastic Albert Collins joined the band for a jam in the second
set…
In August -88 Sky High played to their largest audince ever. It was at the international rock-fest “Glasnost Rock” in
Tallin, Estonia, where the band shared bill with P.I.L., Big Country, Leningrad Cowboys - to name a few –Clas and
the band rocked an astonishing 300.000!!!! freedom-thirsty sovietskys into blues-rock euphoria.
Clas took a break from the European music scene late 1988 when he recordeed a Sky High-album with a group of all
american players in San Fransisco. On the album, ”Have Guitar, Will Travel”, Clas had good help from monster
musicians Prairie Prince (The Tubes ) -drums, Ross Valory ( Journey )-bass, Tim Gorman ( The Who/The
Stones )-keyboards and Norton Buffalo ( Steve Miller Band )-harmonica. Clas brought the band for a European
tour in 1989.
In the early nineties the band was invited to India for a series of concerts. Sky High went down a storm and was, due
to the rock-unexperienced security at the venue, banned from the Siri Fort theater in New Delhi where a couple of
hundred fans stormed the stage and danced it to peaces……The whole tour was filmed by a Swedish team that later
produced a much praised film portraiting Clas and the band on the loose.
1994 the group started a cultural exchange program with the Ecuador band ”Los Chigualeros”, with which Sky High
did a series of concerts both in Ecuador and finally, one year later, at the Falu Folk Musik Festival in Falun Sweden.
Sky High’s original music was featured in the 1996 Swedish box office smash movie ”Jägarna”( “the hunters” ),
directed by Kjell Sundvall, which to this day has been watched by millions all around the world.
Pete Brown, lyricist for supergoup ”Cream” ( with Eric Clapton ) , produced album no 7 – ”Fat Guitar” in New
Jersey in the summer of 1996. Mary Wilson, of The Supremes, was invited to do two duets with Clas as was the
fantastic legendary horn section ”Uptown Horns”( Stones ) and english blues nestor saxophone master Dick
Heckstall-Smith
( John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Colloseum etc.)
Jimi Hendrix in a big-band format was the next thing for Clas, who together with drummer Mats Engstrom and
Uppsala Big-Band produced the album”Purple Haze”, released in the spring of 1998.
Later that year Sky High celebrated their twentieth anniversary with a BIG party with 400 specially invited familymembers, friends and fans from all over the world – the first evening finnished with the band playing a public show
for a jam packed house. The party lasted for two days at the Grand Hotel in Falun, Sweden. Last breakfast was served
at 7 PM the second night!! The retrospect album ”Skyhighlights”, released at the same time, featured one disc of hits
and one of previously unreleased ”tracks from the crypt” ( the Y-files ).
In March 2001 Sky High went down a storm at Austin’s ”SXSW” music and media conferance. The band played a
smoking set at legendary Antones together with some of the best artists in the blues-rock field. ( Delbert Mc Clinton,
Marcia Ball, Eric Johnson ). Check out the smash revue at www.blueswax.com
A brand new album, ”Soul Survivor”, was released september-04. It´s a follow up to last years succcessful ”On The
Cover/25 Years Of Madness”, that marked the start of the collaboration with Virgin Records – the album was the
bands most succesful since the mid-eighties smash “Humanizer”.
The new album was recorded live at Jazzclub Fasching, Stockholm, and features a seven people line up with lead
vocalist Petra Kvanna, Keybord man Per Wiberg and horn players Tore Berglund and Karl Olandersson
added to the basic Sky High trio: Clas Yngstrom - guitar/vocals, Arne Blomqvist-bass guitar and Mats
Ostensson - drums.
For more info/music etc: dig in at www.skyhighblues.com hi rez pics at same but add /press!
ALBUMS:
1. ”Sky High” – 1980
2. ”Still Rockin’” – 1982
3. ”Freezin’ Hot” 1985
4. ”Humanizer” – 1987
5. ”Have Guitar, Will Travel” – 1987
6. ”Safe Sex” – 1990
7. ”Fuzzface” – 1994
8. ”Fat Guitar” – 1996
9. ”Purple Haze” - 1998
10. ”Skyhighlights” – 1998
11. ”Bluester” – 1999
12. ”Freedom” – 2002
13. ”On The Cover/25 Years Of Madness” – 2003
14. ”Tribute To Jimi Hendrix” – 2003
15. ”Soul Survivor” - 2004