Stephen Ackles

Born in 1966 to a Norwegian mother and an American father, country singer Stephen Ackles channeled the fire of Jerry Lee Lewis through his explosive blend of rock & roll, country, and gospel. His first group, the Silly Dream, came together in 1982, and he spent the rest of the decade performing with Memory Band. Memphis News, the band he launched with vocalist Paal Flaata in 1986, cut an album for the Hill label two years later. Kenneth Lovelace, Jerry Lee Lewis’s longtime fiddle player, appeared on the 1991 album If This Ain’t Music, produced by Narvel Felts; the same project featured the duet “Remember,” in which Ackles and Felts paid tribute to the artists they admired most. Norwegian listeners later voted If This Ain’t Music the country album of the year. The accolade led to a Nashville session for Let’s Keep the Night, again with Lovelace and now joined by James Burton and Glen D. Hardin, plus vocal pairings with Waylon Jennings and Linda Gail Lewis. Throughout the mid- and late 1990s, Ackles released multiple albums on Universal Norway that reached the top of the domestic charts and collected several major national honors. He moved to West Records under a new contract in 2002. In addition to music, he worked as an actor in theaters across Norway. Ackles died on September 28, 2023, at the age of 57.