Willy Bakken

Who is Willy Bakken?

Willy Bakken, stage and pen name willy b was a Norwegian musician and popular culture writer.

He hailed from Furnes. According to Bakken's own account, he became interested in rock music in 1963. As a guitarist he joined his first band in 1969. He released his first vinyl with the band Stangwolff in 1981. He later played in the mostly female band Crawdaddy Simone from 1983, later The Willy B Review.

In 1983 and 1984 he published two volumes of Norwegian rock history, titled Norge i rock, beat og blues. It has been called a "standard work". He became known for creating "rock family trees" about the fluctuating members of Norwegian rock bands. Bakken has been called a "rock archaeologist", a "rock oracle" and a living encyclopedia on popular culture. He contributed several articles to the biographical dictionary Norsk biografisk leksikon.

He wrote for the comic magazines Fantomet, Agent X9 and James Bond-magasinet, the rock magazines Nye Takter from 1977 to 1983 and Rock Furore from 1988 to 1994, later mostly for the daily newspaper Dagbladet and the musical magazine Backstage. He also issued fanzines such as Jello Submarine, and ran his own publishing house Rockarkivet.