Walkers came up with songs like “Little Kitty”, “Striptease!” and “Sha La La La” for an audience of very young girls.
In front stood Torben Lendager as the king of curling irons with bare bird breasts, cigarette-thin thighs in tight satin and far from the world’s biggest voice.
But the girls were crazy about him. They dropped out of school and besieged his front door for days. Walker dominated pop magazines such as We Young and Go, and the band occasionally had to be escorted home from concerts by police.
During that period, Walkers was the hottest on the Danish music scene.
The era of glam rock, however, faded again along with the satin pants, and Walkers parted ways in 1977.
But Lendager had, since he was a little nørrebro boy, only wanted to play music. So he drove on with his own solo records in a more Danish-pop style and with fluctuating success.
At the same time he wrote Danish top and melody grand prix songs for Peter Belli, Grethe Ingmann and Tommy Seebach.
The biggest genre leap probably came with “Dear little grandmother”, which Lendager did not want to record himself. Instead, it was immortalized by Richard Ragnwald.
The song was also later recorded by the Swedish Vikings among several Lendager songs. He was also the man behind, among other things, Lonnie Devantier’s Melody Grand Prix winner “Hello, Hello” in 1990.
In 1997 he started Torben Lendager Band with his own songs as well as new and old cover hits. And in 2009, he restored Walkers together with the now deceased drummer Poul Dehnhardt.
Along the way, Lendager also overcame a bilateral lung cancer after decades of 60 daily smokes.
But the music continued to play.
And self-confidence and the cash register even got a much-needed boost when the Dutch eurodance group Vengaboys in 2000 suddenly made an international hit out of Walkers & apos; ancient “Sha La La La”.
Torben Lendager’s career started at the top of a peak he has never reached again since.
But even when he has had to play for the unemployment benefits at a nursing home along the way, he has stated that he has never stopped loving performing.
Source: The Nordic Page