This is how Ilkka Johannes Lipsase became Danny

Pepe Willberg, 75, tells in his recent biography how the band The Islanders was founded in 1962.

Pepe was especially mad From Elvis and played the guitar for a long time.

With the breakthrough of the Beatles, all guitar bands in Finland suddenly needed a vocal soloist.

Pepe reluctantly became the temporary soloist of The Islanders. He was so shy about his singing that he agreed to open his mouth only after the lights were turned off in the practice room.

of The Shadows and by Cliff Richards at the beginning of 1964, the boys who took the role as a model began to look for a soloist who would be suitable as the band’s frontman and who would only focus on singing.

The audition was attended by, among others, a person starting his career Jukka Kuoppamäkibut the boys didn’t warm to her singing sound.

The matter was resolved when Ilkka Johannes Lipsanen, who had been practicing in the same basement with his own Electric Five band, came to the audition and performed Nat Adderley’s song Work Song. Raju’s interpretation was convincing, so he became the band’s vocal soloist.

Pepe saw an international adventurer in Lipsanen’s habit who had grown a beard and smoked a pipe, but the name did not suit the soloist of a band performing English songs.

Ilkka Johannes agreed. He began to investigate Biblefound Daniel there and took the stage name Danny.

The Beatles’ style also affected the external image of Finnish bands: the boys of The Islanders were ordered to wear performance suits made of blue brocade fabric. Danny, who became the band’s frontman, performed in a slightly different colored outfit. His hair remained relatively short, but the haircuts of the other band members grew past their ears.

The program and style went well with Puri’s youth: The Islanders aroused outright hysteria at concerts. The girls screamed and tried to grab the clothes and hair of their idols to tear the memory from them.

In Mäntsälä, the girls managed to grab Pepe’s trouser leg and pull the youngster into the embrace of a flock of fans.

– Danny was really bitter. He would have liked to be torn among the girls, Pepe recalls in his book.

The great popularity only lasted half a year, because Danny left for the army.

The band that lost its front image didn’t throw the gloves on the counter, but wanted to develop themselves as players. So the boys started practicing the new repertoire.

The story of the original The Islanders ended when the guitarist Stig Selink went to the army.

In the early spring of 1965, the five-man Beatmakers was born as a fusion of two bands.

In the summer of 1965, the Beatmakers did the Poppis tanssihetki tour, followed by a gig salesman Jorma Weneskoski organized a concert trip to Sweden. There, the name of the band had to be changed to The Finnish Beatmakers, because there was already a band called The Beatmakers in Sweden.

When that didn’t work either, the boys changed the name Jorma Weneskoski to Jormas. It meant nothing and sounded exotic.

Sauli Miettinen: Pepe Willberg – Muuttuval tiet (Otava) will be published on October 12.