Welcome to Biggi Gunn
Hello, my name is Birgir Gunnarsson and I am Icelandic American and I have been living in The US for almost 30 years. I used to be in bands in Iceland and later here in the US. After that I began working on a project making a CD with some original music and well known Icelandic songs along with some other classics. The first CD was named " I was Younger Then ", which came out in 2007.
Special Event Announcement:
Download event PDF here
Hi everyone, I will be performing August 7 at 9:00 pm with Don Randi and Quest at the Baked Potato 3787 Cahuenga Blvd Studio City CA 91604. Tel 818-980-1615. Don will be on the key's of course John DePatie on guitar, Chris Roy on Bass, Peter Korpela percussion, Todd Wolf on drums Chuck Campers on reeds ( sax ect ) Don and Quest are going to Iceland with me where we will be performing at the Reykjavik jazz festival along with Geir Olafsson, Ragga Bjarna,Edda Borg, Egill Olafsson and special guest Kristjan Johannsson.
This concert will take place at Broadway, August 14 at 9:00 pm . Instead of Todd Wolf on drums we will have Tom Brechtlein one of the worlds best drummers. Cuck wont be able to go either, but in his place we will have Thorleifur Olafsson on sax and Birkir Freyr on trompett and sharing the keys with Don will be Thorir Baldursson.
The following day Sunday August 15 Geir and I along with the same band will be entertaining at the jazz club Rosenberg at 9:00 pm.
Friday August 20 Geir and I will be performing at The Green Hat jazz club in Akureyri along with the band Furstarnir and Saturday 21, the same group will be performing with us at the Menningar Nott in Reykjavik. We will be on a stage in the old down town near the parliment building and by the Vin Barinn at 11 pm - 3 am.
More about my CD releases.
Now I have now released another CD called “On the Sunny Side", which is mostly American standards from the American songbook. On both these CD's I had a friend Reynir Gudmundsson, here in California who helped me make English lyrics to many of these Icelandic songs, as well as my brother who wrote the title song on the first one. The first CD was done here in California at Trylogi studio in Alta Lomt but the second one was done in Iceland at Vox studio Reykjavik. This was a dream of mine to introduce Icelandic music to Americans and others.
All About Me
I was born in Reykjavik Iceland January 1st 1951. My father was Gunnar B.Jonsson and my mother is Ebba Johannesdottir. I have 4 children Bergur the oldest, Biggi Jr., Emily and the yongest Elizabeth. I moved when I was 1 or 2 years old to a town called Keflavik, this town is also called the Beatles town, because many of Icelands best musicians have lived or were born and or grew up.
Many of my parents friends were military people, my father spoke exellent english and so did my mother and my dad worked on the American base as well as being a taxi driver with many clients there. So as a kid I always had my mind set on music and I loved the US and what it stood for and I dreamed of going to America.
I moved from Keflavik to a small fishing village named Olafsvik at the age of 12 and started my first band when I was 13 or so with one of my all time best friend Siggi Hosk and than we joined another band that we played in for years called Falcon and later we changed the name to Lukas.
When I moved to America at the tender age of 30, I was not much involved in music however few years later the Icelandic American Associasion in Los Angeles was always looking to get bands from Iceland for their gathering. Which is a very expensive proposition, so one day the ladies in the organization asked me and few other people here in LA area if we could put together a band,
At that time I had began to study opera singing with a professional organizer Jim Choen in Monrovia, I got a hold of a guy who was working in some studio in Hollywood, an Icelander who calls him self today Gis Country ( Gisli ) and he was ready. My son Beggi was here in town studying at the Musicians Institute of Hollywood and he is an excellent bass player. Then we got Anna Mjoll a great singer who has worked with many famous singers and now also has a new CD out called “Shadow of Your Smile” which highlights her amazing voice.
Then we got Attli Orvarsson on keyboard to join in, so we had a super Icelandic group in Los Angeles.
From there on I had stopped the opera studying and turned to studying musicals a little at Redlands University. Then the ladies at the Icelandic Association asked if I could put together another band like that Icelandic band, but I had no one to turn to but the music was in the blood so I began to look around and found another guy Hannes JON and we put together a band with different guys, and I eventually had a band here in San Bernardino that played around here and we played for the Icelandic clubs here on the west coast from San Diego to Seattle to Phoenix and San Fransisco along with LA.
So here I am producing a CD with songs that I have loved for many years that have been popular in Iceland and abroad and some new songs. My Brother Gundi wrote a song for me on this album and many of the songs are written by a child hood friend of mmine from the days in Keflavik Magnus Kjartnsson, and some clssics are here as well. I translated some of the songs from Icelandic to english and I also got another fantastic Icelandic musician who lives here in California to write new lirics to some of the songs.
My brother Gundi got me involved with an excellent musician Fred Bettge at The Trilogy studio in Rancho Cugamonga where I eventually recorded my Cd "I Was Younger Then". There were many good people that were involved in this with me and who incurraged me to do this and to name a few Villi Gudjonsson Maggi Kjartans ,who lended me many of his best songs and most of all my wife Christie, who is the rock in my life.
I will be recording more songs in the near future besides a few that have been recorded but yet not finished, I won't be putting them on a full project right now, but they will be available on my side and other places such as I-tunes and napster when they are finished one by one, so stay tuned.