Eriksen

Norwegian roots music act Eriksen, formed by brother-sister pair Rita Eriksen on vocals and Frank Eriksen handling vocals plus guitar, issued multiple well-received albums throughout the initial half of the 1990s. Their collaboration came to an end toward the close of that decade, after which Rita launched a solo path marked by comparable achievements. Rita, who entered the world on May 26, 1966, within Sola, Norway, first stepped out alone in 1988 via Back from Wonderland, a pop recording in English featuring familiar classics. That project failed to achieve notable sales, leading to a four-year gap until the siblings’ 1992 joint release Two Blue under the Eriksen name. This effort proved highly popular, climbing into Norway’s album chart upper ranks and earning the 1992 Spellemannprisen for top Norwegian roots & country music album. Eriksen followed with The Water Is Wide in 1994 and Alt Vende Tebage in 1995, which landed at positions six and three on the domestic album ranking. Rita joined forces with Irish vocalist Dolores Keane for Tideland in 1996, an anthology of traditional songs that also performed strongly. Their next duo album Blåmandag arrived in 1998 but underperformed, prompting the pair to end their working relationship. Rita then stepped away from recording for a period before reemerging via the understated Queen Bees project From the Fountain in 2005 and her own Hjerteslag in 2008, marking her return to solo work. Issued two decades following her initial solo outing, Hjerteslag achieved strong results by peaking at number six on the Norwegian albums chart, which in turn prompted the timely appearance of the Eriksen compilation De Aller Beste that topped the charts.