Hanna Hedman
An obituary by Göran Forsling

Swedish record producer Hanna Hedman passed away on 20 June at the age of 85. She was born as Hanna Bruhn in Lägerdorf, north of Hamburg in Germany and moved to Sweden in the mid-1950s. In the 1960s she was employed at Grammofon AB Electra, which represented several international labels, including RCA, Teldec and Decca and also produced their own recordings on Swedish Society Discofil and other labels. There she met producer Frank Hedman who in 1977 left the company and in 1979 started his own company Bluebell. Hanna joined him and they married in 1983. When Frank died in 1990, Hanna decided to continue running the company.
 
Bluebell’s production can be divided in two segments: new recordings with primarily Swedish musicians and mostly also Swedish repertoire, and historical recordings with Swedish singers, mostly culled from various sources, where Swedish Radio’s archives had a central role. Internationally Bluebell became known for a large series of live recordings with Jussi Björling, amassing to a total of 21 titles, the last of which also was the company’s very last production in 2012.
 
But through the years a large number of other Swedish singers were presented in the series “Great Swedish Singers”, encompassing more than 25 CDs. More than a dozen of those have been reviewed at Musicweb-international.
 
Hanna Hedman ran her company with great purposefulness and a sound judgement of musical and artistic values. She was also a warm, amiable and humoristic person. We occasionally conversed over the phone and also met in person several times and she will always remain in my memory with great affection.