William Lind

Biography
William Lind’s debut in the music business was when he started playing the piano in a bar when he was thirteen years of age. Four years later he first conducted an orchestra at the Borås Revue. Between 1933 and 1936, he studied at the Stockholm Conservatory. In 1939, he got a job as the pianist of the Radiotjänst Orchestra.

In 1945, he became the musical director of the Kabaretorkester. Several years later he took over the baton of the SR Underhållningsorkester. For decades, Lind was a household name in Sweden with radio music programmes, in which he featured nearly on a daily basis. His orchestra was always introduced by a radio speaker with the lines: ‘Ute blåser sommarvind, inne spelar William Lind’ (Outside, the summer wind is blowing, inside William Lind is playing), after which the orchestra played Lind’s signature melody ‘Life is nothing without music’. In 1959, Lind combined his work for the radio orchestra with the function of Head of Music at ST, Swedish Television.

Meanwhile, William Lind worked as an arranger and conductor in the record studio with many artists, such as the Finnish singer Maire Ojonen. He composed hit melodies, amongst which ‘Jag är så glittrande glad’ by Sickan Carlsson, and scores for films, which include ‘Utan gränser’ (1957) and ‘Tillsammans’ (1964). ‘Sir William’, as he was nicknamed, was pensioned in 1976.

In 1961 and 1963, Lind shared the musical directorship of the Swedish Eurovision preselections, ‘Eurovisionschlagern’, with Göte Wihelmson. Lind led his Underhållningsorkester, while Wilhelmson was responsible for the quintet which played all songs in different arrangements. On both occasions, William Lind also conducted the winning song of the heats in the international contest. In 1961, ‘April april’, sung by Lill-Babs, came fourteenth in Cannes; two years later, in London, he accompanied Monica Zetterlund in her intriguing rendition of ‘En gång i Stockholm’, one of the four entries that year not to appear on the scoreboard. Two years later, in 1965, Lind together with Mats Olsson and Hans Wahlgren arranged the six songs performed by the classically trained vocalist Ingvar Wixell in the Swedish preselection. One of the two entries for which he was responsible as both orchestrator and conductor, ‘Annorstädes vals’, won, as a result of which Lind for the third and last time made an appearance in the Eurovision finals, this time in Naples. This time, Wixell sang the entry in English, ‘Absent friend’, but it made little impact on the international juries, placing tenth in a field of eighteen.

In due course, a more extensive biography of William Lind will be published on this website