Calle Lindström
Calle Lindström (1868–1955) was a Swedish singer and comedian from Östergötland. Career Trained as a stucco worker, Lindström eventually left that line of work to become a bondkomiker (peasant comic) and bygdemålstalare (dialect storyteller). In 1901 he appeared for the first time at the newly dedicated folk park in Norrköping. He took part in local revues there for many years, and was on the folk park circuit until the end of the 1940s. A long-term contract enabled him to become one of Sweden's most prolific recording artists with over two hundred sides to his credit. His motto was: "Above all else, be original!" Calle Lindström had perhaps the most varied background of any peasant comic. Born in 1868, in his youth he was a circus artist, who worked in every facet of the entertainment industry. The concertina was his instrument as he regaled audiences despite missing four fingers on his right hand — he had to turn the instrument upside down and hide the disfigured hand with a handkerchief. He sometimes used a method of presentation called the "tintamarresque theater". A common practice in Swedish variety halls, the performer would stand behind a photographed foreground and slip his head through