Zanna Gregmar
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Zanna Gregmar
Singer / songwriter / musician
Instruments: Keyboards, Guitar
She caught her first glimpse of sun while visiting the sign of Leo in the year of the snake into an artistic family in Landskrona Sweden.
From a long line of respected artists and musicians,her mother a classical ballerina, model and designer, and her father an actor and dancer & dance teacher,there was never any question of her future life and passion.
She started entertaining professionally as a young teenager in Sweden, working first as a troubadour singing folk music, then joining various show bands with emphasis on vocals and harmony work and touring extensively in Europe.
In the lmid 70:s she was signed to BUK records in London and during this time started collaborating with artists such as Tony Sheridan.
She was signed by EMI-Music Publishing in London in1976.She worked as a session singer and collaborated and recorded with amongst others; Bernie Marsden, (Whitesnake), Raphael Ravenscroft (Gerry Rafferty) and Nicky Moore (Samson).
She recorded a single produced by Mike Hurst with a girl group”Frankie and the Favourites”
Zanna joined a Salsa band called Manana with Jorge Spiteri, Bill Lovelady and sometimes Aierto
She played in various piano bars such as the Café in Kensington for a year and the Intercontinental Hotel in London for a year, and also the biggest piano bars in Sweden and Denmark.
Back in Sweden she started the Heavy rock band "ZANNA" with her brother Bolle Gregmar on drums, Rolf Jonsson Guitar, ( later replaced with Patrick Ohlsson and Sune Martinell on Bass.
She joined Bill Lovelady’s band when he had a no 1 hit for Twenty -two weeks in Sweden with”One more Reggae for the Road”.
After the tour she teamed up with British multi instrumentalist / guitar hero Ollie Halsall who joined ”ZANNA” the heavy rock band and toured Sweden.
Zanna and Ollie joined Kevin Ayers Band in the early 80: s based in Spain, recorded for CBS in New York. Toured Spain. Zanna became known as the first female keyboard player in Rock to perform on Spanish stages.
European tours followed as well as the recording of music for Kevin’s film ”Percussion”, and an album ”Jack of Diamonds and the Queen of Pain”.
A TV special and some concerts with John Cale (Velvet Underground) and Andy Summers(Police) in Spain.
Zanna wrote music for three albums for Spanish Punk star RAMONCIN and also hit single”Sal de Naja” on Hispavox.
She recorded an album for the film”Sal Gorda” (by Oscar winner Fernando Trueba) on Ariola featuring single ”Entra en mi Cuerpo – Sal de mi vida”. She also appeared in the film.
Zanna and Ollie teamed up with some Spanish top musicians, Javier de Juan and Manolo Diaz and formed group ”Cinemaspop”. Recorded two albums for WEA and had 4 top five hits, with ”Zorba the Greek”, ”We love you Marilyn”, ”Following the Blonde” and ”Let’s go to the movies”.
She collaborated with Top artists ”Mecano”, ”Azul y Negro” and Flamenco-Rock star Manzanita on record, TV and on stage.She did a multitude of different TV and radio shows as well as concerts.
Zanna also gave private lessons in Singing and English.
In 1985 she moved to Hollywood, California where the career got temporarily interrupted because of the arrivals of Two Lovely Daughters and her decision to study psychology. She then proceeded to study Hypnosis with the thought of specialising in the creative and artistic field such as motivation, goal focus, concentration, creativity, positive thinking removing writers block, stage fright and other fears and phobias etc. and graduated as a clinical Hypnotherapist in 1994.
However she continued to write and record music and collaborated with amongst others Ric Olsen (Berlin), ”Rockwell” (Somebody’s watching me), ”Maestro Alex Gregory”
She gave private lessons in Singing and Guitar, and Hypnosis for stage, performance and creativity related problems.
She wrote a collection of Lullabies for babies, siblings, parents and other folk ”Suite Dreams”, which she recorded together with Tom and Steve Fowler known from Frank Zappa’s band.
She went back to her native Sweden in1996 became politically involved with the Hague convention, started an international support network ”Children’s Rights in the Hague Convention” held a seminar for the government about the practical implications of the Hague Convention, held many lectures about the subject, was frequently featured on radio and TV interviews and wrote and recorded a theme song in support of families suffering from the reality of the Convention : ”Tears of a child”.
She had her own very popular TV-shows on local TV,sang and lectured about positive thinking, hosted many functions, performed singing her own songs and playing the piano, sang standards with a swing band, started and ran a school of singing and performing for children and teenagers for three years , arranged several song and dance shows, plus taught music on both primary and high school level.
In June 2003 she finally returned to her beloved England to once again pick up the pieces and perform a variety of songs from the different paths and places in her life.
In 2004 Zanna started a new company for creative pursuits and its first project ”The Cool School of Singing” for all ages starting at six and upwards.(every Saturday during school terms). Private lessons are also offered.
In June 2005 she also started an adult version of ”the Cool School” on Tues evenings in Cottingham which was enthusiastically received by a crowd of aspiring performers and hobby singers of all ages.
Zanna joined Mike Greaves and the Lonesome Too, singing close harmonies, in 2008.
Currently Zanna’s recording an album of some of her previously unrecorded rock songs with Terence James Dunne (from Ernest and Man Made Noise) and Brian Chapman.