Ultimate Love Songs Collection

A big-voiced blue-eyed soul, jazz, and pop vocalist reminiscent of Lulu, Dusty Springfield, and Petula Clark, Sweden's Doris Svensson is best known for her lone solo LP, 1970's eclectic Did You Give the World Some Love Today Baby. Although it made few waves on its initial release, it became a favorite of rare-groove crate-diggers as time went on.

Born in Gothenburg in 1947, Svensson performed with several bands throughout the '60s, making her debut with the Strangers in 1960 and going on to score hits in the groups Plums ("Mama Didn't Lie," "Wouldn't That Be Groovy" -- the latter with a promo video directed by a young Lasse Hallström) and the Dandys ("Go Back to Daddy") late in the decade. Doris (as she was billed) cut her first and only album for EMI/Odeon with several noted local musicians, including jazz pianist, organist, composer, and producer Berndt Egerbladh, who also wrote most of the tunes; drummer and film actor Janne "Loffe" Carlsson of the instrumental jazz-rock duo Hansson & Karlsson; and her husband, bassist Lucas Lindholm. Along with the bright, Dusty-esque pop-soul of the title track, the album featured an inspired take on the Band's "Whispering Pines," a pair of funky soul stompers ("Don't" and "Beatmaker"), and the eerie psychedelic jazz freakout "You Never Come Close." Although the album sold poorly and Svensson retreated from the limelight -- playing in a dansband with her husband during the '70s before retiring from music altogether -- those last three cuts, in particular, piqued the interest of record collectors over the ensuing decades, eventually creating enough demand to warrant several CD reissues in the 1990s and 2000s, one of which included a handful of bonus tracks from her days with Plums and the Dandys. Doris Svensson died on January 15, 2023 at a care facility in Gothenburg, Sweden. She was 75 years of age. ~ K. Ross Hoffman