Rudi London

Rudi London, an American citizen, was born Njål Helle, July 7, 1949 in Nedstrand, Norway. As both a singer/musician and a writer, his artistic career spans over three decades, and two continents. His first single, "You Can Take No Money Into Heaven" was released by Talent Records, Oslo, Norway, for release in Europe, December 1978, followed up with his first album release of 1979, the song "Nottingham Forest Is My Rock & Roll" was featured on BBC Sunday Night Sports and BBC News. Rudi London’s first novel for worldwide release, The Operator Is Calling was published in 2009 by Amazing Road.

Early life

Rudi "Njål" London was born at 12:37 A.M., July 7, 1949, upstairs at his parent’s home built by his father on a piece of land called Rabben, part of Nedre Helle, Hinderåvag — in the county of Nedstrand — situated on the southern west coast of Norway. His father was a construction supervisor, carpenter, plumber, welder, logger, fisherman, military professional, and a political/practical visionary; his mother a homemaker, seamstress, singer in the local choir, painter, life artist and a student of the stage, the classics, and opera. London could sing before he could talk and his first musical instrument was the harmonica and later the accordion. London loved to read the weekly Donald Duck magazine. His favorite bible story was John the Baptist. Inspired by his parents, London was at age 10 working summer jobs at Tveit Agricultural School picking weeds from endless rows of turnips and continued his career with hammering wooden tomato boxes at the local sawmill. His pursuit of cash had but one purpose: A brand new blue DBS bike from Jonas Øglænd. Stories of London's growing-up days can be found in his biography, 3 Angels.

School Band

In 1961, London failed in trying out for drums in the Nedstrand School Band and started playing the tenor horn instead. He was later promoted to kornett (smaller trumpet). During 1965, London quit the school band and began attending high school in the city of Bryne, south of Stavanger, Norway.

London's favorite reads before teens were The Bobbsey Twins, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Uncle Tom's Cabin and Deerfoot stories. During summers, he worked different jobs on local Nedstrand farms and as a tomato picker in green houses on the island of Finnøy.

High School

In the fall of 1965 he joined a rock & roll band called The Honeymoons and London finally got to play the drums. The group performed their debut at the popular Sunday Night Veritas (student society) at Bryne High School that same year. In 1966 the lead singer had left the band and their name changed: Lambeth Walkers became the new talk of the town. The bass player was the only one not singing now and the band with the new name became popular. During one of their Veritas appearances, they shared stage with the famous Norwegian folk singer Åse Kleveland. During spring of 1967, Lambeth Walkers was the first real Beatles type rock & roll band to perform at the Saturday night dance facility, "På Baustad" in Nedstrand. The band toured the islands and small towns from up north in the fjords of Rogaland Fylke all the way down to Egersund south of Bryne. On one occasion, the band recorded a demo tape backing a hopeful singer to pitch her talent to Arne Bendiksen, the major record producer and label owner of Oslo, Norway.

Lambeth Walkers made rock impact and started doing concerts at Bryne Film theater. Nurk Twins from Stavanger and The Vanguards of Oslo later joined them. Back then you didn’t hear much of the music played on stage since all the girls screamed louder than the PA systems were able to keep up with. London’s biggest moment came when Per Lorentz "Peder" Borsheim, the popular and very established lead vocalist of Nurk Twins, told drummer London that his singing would definitely take him places. Beginning fall of 1967, London started electronics class at Sandnes Vocational School and Lambeth Walkers became Needs Must — Magne Rimestad joined the band doing lead vocals, rhythm guitar, and blues harp. The band's music turned more toward John Mayall type of blues and jazz. Instead of playing what he called, “Ode to The Fire Engine,” on his harmonica, London now got inspired by Rimestad and switched to blues harp playing. Then, in the end of spring of 1968, Needs Must went history. Schooling was over. Magne Rimestad later played bass in the famous Naboens Rockeband in Trondheim, Norway.

London's favorite reads during his teens were Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Jack London, and Norman Qonquest stories. He earned extra cash by painting houses and carpentry repair work.

Early career

During the summer of 1968, London got busy building houses for Block Watne Hus in the Stavanger/Sandnes area. But then fall came. Who wants to build houses in the snow? London moved to Oslo and started his computer career in January 1969 at Forsvarets (Norwegian Military/NATO) Datasentral, Oslo. Working on IBM 360 mainframes, Mr. London sent his first emessage from Oslo to Bergen in November that same year. In early 1970 he told an IBM tech guy that one day we would have music and books and pictures and all sitting on a little black box the size of a cigarette lighter. The IBM'er did not share that view of the future.

First recording

In the spring of 1970, a Tandberg’s 64X (4-track) tape recorder became London’s best new friend and he recorded himself playing all instruments on his very first song on tape: "Stumblin’ ‘Round". Exploratory reading: Däniken

Air Force

In July 1970, He joined the Norwegian Air Force to fly fighter jets. During the initial eyesight checkup pilot-hopeful London suddenly became b-airman due to vision problems. The pilot-no-longer-to-be was reduced to guarding his king, King Olav V, and miscellaneous other duties at the Norwegian Pentagon. Performed secret missions – addressed in 3 Angels– for his colonel and served at one instance as captain for a two-week period. London did services with access/security clearance to the large operations room.

Systems Management

Eventually, London convinced his colonel to let him go back to the IBM 360 for the remaining draft period. Forsvarets Datasentral (Military/NATO computer operations) promoted him to Førstesekretær (First Secretary). Next, the private computer industry came calling to offer London good reasons to grow his potential. In the fall of 1971, he continued with operations management at Rogalandsdata A/S in Stavanger and the year after he moved on to Trondheim Datasenter A/S working with systems flow analysis. In 1973 London was promoted to Planning Department Leader — also occasionally functioning as interim CEO — and started taking classes at Bedriftsøkonomisk Institutt (BS) to study law, marketing, computer science and business/government. Experimenting with his company’s new IBM 370 mainframe system, he soon found a way to bypass the system’s operating job-step initiation procedures. As result, production throughput on some jobs increased with up to 70%. London wrote about his system ideas in a book produced for computer insiders only and spoke of his operating system flow improvements at the University of Oslo in 1975. The year after London went to Seattle and met with Jean Bartik, one of the original ENIAC programmers.

Rock & Roll

Late fall of 1976, London was asked to lead sing with a band called Viscount in Trondheim, Norway. This developed into Njaal Band, with Johnny Yen on Keyboard; but success wasn’t meant to be. Moscus came along and saved the day. They could really play and later recorded a few tunes with London: "Kommer Du" and "America" (very first try at "Happy Birthday America".) These and other songs landed him a deal with Talent Records in Oslo, Norway. First single, "You Can Take No Money Into Heaven", came out in November 1978 and took to the German air waves in late December.

1979 was London’s busiest year yet. The Nottingham Forest songs came out in early fall followed by the album named "Njaal Helle". Rosy, from Århus, Denmark, became the concert band. Two songs from the album — "Hyper People" and "Nottingham Forest is my Rock & Roll" — climbed the European radio charts, Europatoppen. Music from the album has been covered by many other artists and also translated in different languages/countries all over the world. London was featured on BBC TV/Radio and German radio as well in Norway and USA.

1980 came with more songs, now recorded with Rosy, and London started writing articles/short stories for different Norwegian magazines, such as Det Nye, Allers, etc.. Some of the stories were then later released in Best-of-the-year collections in book form. "Hyper People" received an award at The American Song Festival in Los Angeles in 1980. The song "Home for Sale" received an award in The Music City Song Festival, Nashville, Tennessee, in 1981.

United States

London retired from Norwegian rock & roll and came to Nashville, Tennessee, on November 2, 1980, two days prior to Ronald Reagan's presidential election win. London started his photojournalism business: Hope Hines, Felice & Boudleaux Bryant — the writers of Rocky Top, Grandpa Jones, Roy Acuff, Minnie Pearl, Skeeter Davis, Conway Twitty, Bill Anderson, The Statler Brothers, Gary Morris, Rosanne Cash and Rodney Crowell, Lorrie Morgan, Kathy Mattea, Governor Ned McWherter, Maggie Cavender–the founder of NSAI, Lillian Askeland, Teddy Nelson, Bjøro Håland, and Arne Benoni had one thing in common: London took their picture: used for album/magazine covers, billboards, articles, and promotional literature. From November 1983 to April 1988 London was Project Manager for the building of the Service Merchandise 767,000 sq.ft. automated distribution center in Montgomery, New York. In June 1988 wedding photojournalism and video production became London's profession.

Religion

The underlying principles established in The S.K.E. Institute’s Laws of The Universe has taught London the true relationship between language practice and actual physical behavior. Thus it became the primum mobile of his novel debut, The Operator Is Calling. Since age of seven, under great influence of his paternal grandmother, Sina Helle, and his grade 1-7 teacher, Odd Roalkvam, London has studied Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, in addition to writings of Billy Graham, Napoleon Hill, Martinus, The Dalai Lama, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Cornelia Shakour, The Egyptian Book of The Dead, The Tibetan Book of The Dead, to name a few. London accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior in the Church of Nedstrand on September 15, 1963. Today he teaches Sunday School and is a member of the Advisory Board at Oaklawn Free Will Baptist Church in Chapmansboro, Tennessee, USA.

Works

The Operator Is Calling (Hardcover/Kindle/Nook/eBook) ISBN 978-0-9823022-0-0 Library of Congress 2009921307 Copyright © 2009

3 Angels (Hardcover/Kindle/Nook/eBook) ISBN 978-0-9823022-4-8 Library of Congress 2010900184 Copyright © 2010

No Escape From Berlin (Hardcover/Kindle/Nook/eBook) ISBN 978-0-9823022-7-9 Library of Congress 2011901203 Copyright © 2011

Njaal Helle Talent Records Album TLS 4017 Copyright © 1979

Norske Rockere (Njaal Helle with Jahn Teigen, etc..) Trønder Selskapet Homes/Nidaros Studio Album Copyright © 1986

We Are The Champions (20 Football Fantasies) (Njaal Helle) Summit Records Album SUMCD4076 Copyright © 1991

You Reds (Njaal Helle with Paper Lace) Cherry Red Records Album CDGAFFER8 Copyright © 1996

Fulle Mugger - Norwegian Rock 1970s/1980s/1990s (Njaal Helle with Kristin Berglund) Godt Norsk Records Album 11804-2 Copyright © 2000

Det Beste - (The Best From The '70s) (Njaal Helle with Inger Lise Rypdal) Flexi Records FLX 123 Copyright © 2006

The Early Years (Rudi London) Talent Records Album TWEB4017 Copyright © 2010

References