“In addition to close friends Evert Taube and Sven Salén, members included Håkan Norlén, Stockholm mayor Gunnar Fant, Ulf Peder Olrog and singer Lille Bror Söderlundh. The group was later augmented by nextgeneration singers and actors such as Stig Järrel, William Clausen, Hai & Topsy, Olle Adolphson, Lars Forssell and Beppe Wolgers. For an anniversary in 1966, all of 65 singers gathered at the top floor of the Salén’s office on Styrmansgatan for food and song. 

It is surely unparalleled that a businessman, initiator and Jack-of-all-trades was also a devoted poet, lutanist and amateur minstrel and simultaneously the major patron of folk song in his time. Sven Salén found time for all this. He financed premises, furniture and musical instruments for Friends in Song and later even provided economic security for the Centre for Folk Music Research.”

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