The
career in general outline
“Wallu” (Arto Kalevi) Heinomaa was born on June 19, 1952 in
Raahe. When the boy was still young the family moved to Tampere. With his elder brother, Henkka, Wallu eagerly followed pop music
when still a child. His
favourites were e.g. Beatles, Yardbirds and Rolling Stones.
Soon the brothers started practising music together; Wallu sang and
played the guitar with Tapani Wirsell and Henkka played the bass. Their first band was called The Nameless and Jarmo “Jaapo”
Koistinen, a next door boy, joined
as a drummer. The band was
forced to split up when the Heinomaa family moved to Heinola because the father got a new job
there.
In Heinola the brothers continued their musical interest and soon a
new band was put together –The Invaders with Wallu (vocals and guitar),
Tom Aalto (vocals and guitar), Jukka Juvonen (keyboards), Henkka (bass)
and Vexi Gustafsson (drums). Tom
came from Kuusankoski where he had played in a band called The Nails with the future
Charlies drummer Ari “Kusti” Ahlgren (Charlies was a quite famous and
well respected hard rock band in the sixties and seventies in Finland). There were, however, minor musical disagreements between the
members of the band and the tensions caused by them divided the group in
two: Vexi and Jukka organized a band called Took and the Heinomaa brothers
with Tom put together Price in 1967.
Price
For a long time Price worked as a trio: Wallu sang and played the drums, Tom also sang and played the
guitar and Henkka continued as a bass player. They got more experienced in music and more and more gigs were
booked. But changes in the
line-up were bound to come: Tom moved back to Kuusankoski and was not a
permanent member anymore (but joined the band again in the recording
sessions). The drummer´s seat
was taken by Osmo Paalanen and Wallu returned
to play the guitar. After a
while Paalanen was replaced by Timo Mieskolainen (ex- The Wikings). This line-up made two small tours in Sweden and in 1970 a single
“Move on and make it”/”It´s alright” was recorded in the Microvox
studios in Lahti.
Price had it going quite nicely. There were plenty of gigs to play in the Heinola-Lahti-Tampere-Jyväskylä
area. But when the members of
the band had to do their military service one after another, things in
practise got a little messy. The group had expanded a quintet when Wallu
after his days in the Finnish army was asked to join a Lahti based rock
band, Amulet in 1973. Wallu
accepted the offer and moved to Lahti and Price split up. In mid-seventies Henkka Heinomaa joined Sleepy Sleepers (a very
popular group in Finland best known for its [more or less] humoristic
lyrics and extraordinary stage show).
The reunion gig of the original Price was played on February 1, 2001
in Molly Malone´s restaurant in Lahti. For the event Wallu, Tom and Henkka rehearsed their old repertoire. Along with the project was also drummer Tero Sundell. Those of us who joined the partying will remember a long time what
a great evening in the spirit of the sixties it was!
Amulet
Amulet was founded in Lahti in 1968 by Pekka Sormunen (ex-The Shapes)
and Pertti Sormunen (ex-The Wanderers). In the early days the guitar players came and went until the young
Hannu “Hans” Helminen (ex-Noise) was found. When Wallu joined the band the line-up was Pekka Sormunen (vocals,
drums), Hannu Helminen (guitar), Pertti “Teddy” Sormunen (bass, vocals)
and Wallu Heinomaa (vocals, guitar). The
band gigged regularly, even though each member had a steady job.
When Helminen was relaced by Heikki “Mickey” Hiiri (ex-Custard
Pie) the band was enjoying its
heyday. With the album
“Caddy by Amulet” published in 1976 Amulet hit the national charts
(the album nearly sold gold), the single “Suomen Chicago” (Chicago of
Finland) got a lot of airplay and more than 200 gigs were played yearly.
The
band was more than the recordings let know. Their live repertoire was quite
heavy including a lot of rock, sixties feeling and sometimes even country. A good example of the tight playing of the band was seen and heard
in the television program “Iltatähti” (Evening Star) in 1975 when
Amulet played live “It´s not a nations´s fault” written by Wallu.
At the same time Wallu was for a while a member of a Heinola-based
group For Inside, which played heavily experimental progressive/fusion
music: their set consisted of long self-penned musical themes, which were
improvised. The line-up was:
Wallu (vocals, guitar), Heikki Keskinen (saxophone), Kari Leino (bass) and
Timo Ronkainen (drums). Wallu
also worked for D-Tuotanto (D-Tuotanto is one of the biggest booking
agencies in Finland). The name
of the game was Locomotion, a backing group for Markku Aro (a quite
popular singer of easy-listening music in Finland). During the evening the band played two sets of their own and one
with Markku Aro. The members
of the line-up were Attila “Otto” Berger (guitar, vocals), Kimmo
“Kippari” Parviainen (keyboards), “Kalmisto” Hautala (bass) and
Hannu Rontu (drums). “Otto”
Berger asked Wallu to be his replacement, because he was leaving for his
ex-native country Austria for a holiday, but actually his trip took
several months. In 1976 Wallu
was also seen with Sleepy Sleepers, the band that caused offence
everywhere (especially in the minds of the older people). Those days Wallu didn´t have problems with his leisure time! During his career he has done countless stand-in gigs e.g. with
local dance orchestras playing the guitar, bass or drums and, of course,
singing.
Amulet
is still alive and well and gigs yearly every now and again. The present day line-up is Wallu Heinomaa, Heikki Hiiri,
Hannu Helminen, Pekka Sormunen and Pertti Sormunen. After its
formation the band has published six singles and three albums. Besides there are some stray tracks published in the collection
albums e.g. by Satsanga (a record company dead and buried). Wallu produced the Amulet albums “Play it” and “Monet joet
ylitän” (Many rivers to cross) and took part in the designing and art
work of the album covers.
The year 1977 brought new changes. Wallu and Heikki Hiiri left Amulet and with Vesa-Matti “Wellu”
Lehtinen and Esa “Palsa” Lahti (both ex-Separaattori, a backing group
for Salomon, a singer of some reputation in the seventies) formed a band
called NEPA. The name was
partly loaned from a Lahti-based band of the sixties N.E.P.A (North
European Pacific Artists) in which “Palsa” had played the bass.
N
.E.P.A
NEPA
is best known for its West Coast country-rock covers, which they did (damn)
well! But the band had also a
very ambitious project “Tommy and Laura Opera”, for which they wrote
music of their own to back the plot. They
also did the direction and the acting themselves, Wallu starring the play. The story was based on the song “Tell Laura I love her” from
the fifties. It was a love
story of youngsters, fast cars and the pain of growing up in the spirit of
hot-rod driving. The play also
had impressive set pieces and photo and sound effects.
In the training room the band composed and rehearsed new material of
their own in order to publish an album. It is a pity that the project never came true, because the songs
recorded in those sessions are splendid e.g. “Wellu blues”. This line-up published a country styled single “Autumn”/”Just for you and me” on their own Noise Records
label.
In the beginning of the year 1979 Lehtinen decided to make his
living as a professional musician with a dance orchestra. His replacement was a young guitar player Teemu “Tekke” Töyrylä
(ex-Tweety) and Wallu started to play the drums (not the first time, folks!). They published a single “Hey Tonight”/”Daisy Jane” and
after that the line-up got its permanent form when Töyrylä was replaced
by Aki Pietilä. The band made
its appearances e.g. in the television, Karjaa Country Cavalcade and
Saapasjalkarock (both festivals long gone). The third single published by NEPA was “Leaving Louisiana in the
broad daylight”/”Two more bottles of wine”. But during 1982-1983 the band simply faded away (like old soldiers). Those days Wallu ran his own printing house in Heinola, but later
had give up because of economical problems. He had worked in the graphic industry for years and continued to do
so ´till the late eighties and then decided to become a professional
musician.
In the early eighties Wallu lived in Heinola and played in different
kinds of groups, mostly with young guys. The main concept was to teach the young musicians the basic things
of playing rock and roll and of show business altogether.
The next real band was called Hard Rain, which played heavily Dylan
influenced music. The whole
thing started from Finnish lyrics of Dylan´s songs made by Rauli
Nordberg, which convinced Wallu to play them. Members of the band along with Wallu were “Junnu” Kuisma, Jari “Jetson” Hakulinen, Kari
Sviili and Kirsti Eskola.
In
the year 1983 Wallu moved to Helsinki, worked as a graphic artist (and for
a short period with the local post office, so if your letters got lost
those days you know whom to blame!) and played only to his own delight. He wrote quite many new songs and recorded some demos with e.g.
Albert Järvinen (one of the most respected guitar players in Finland.
R.I.P), who was a friend of Wallu´s. The whole Helsinki period was a bit messy.
Sometimes between 1984 and 1985 Pekka
Sormunen from Lahti called and said that Amulet was about to rehearse a
new repertoire and asked if Wallu was interested and so he started to
regularly visit “The Chicago of Finland” and has ever since been a
permanent member of Amulet.
In 1988 Wallu moved back to Heinola and started to put Price
together again: Wallu, Henkka, Kari “Kössi” Könönen (keyboards)
Kari Sviili (drums) and Jussi Ristilä (saxophone). After a couple of gigs Henkka was replaced by Olli “Oka”
Utriainen. Price has
ever since been sort of a backing group for Wallu and the line-up has been
very flexible. Especially in the nineties and even today Price has gigged
a lot deserving its good reputation in the club circuit in Finland.
Sometimes Wallu also played with a band called Herkkukurkut (no
English translation for that, it´s better this way!), which started as an
acoustic band playing melodic hootenanny (what ever that means) music and
later its line-up was the same as the one of the latter days´ Price´s. Their set consisted, and still does, of their self-penned songs,
blues, Beatles, Dylan and other classics. Herkkukurkut recorded an EP of six songs in 1997 with the line-up
Wallu, Pekka “Devil” Virtanen, Kari “Pitkä” Lehtinen, Jussi
Ristilä and Tero Sundell. Pepe
Ahlqvist, Dave Lindholm and Marko Haavisto (all well known Finnish
musicians) among others have made appearances with the band.
When
Charlies was re-formed for “Jokivarren Jytinät” (Riverside Rumble, a
mini scale rock festival) Wallu played the guitar and sang in the band. Their rehearsals were played in his home in Lahti. After Rauma Blues ´98 –gig he was replaced by “Nipa”
Niilola. Otherwise the line-up
has remained the same: “Wellu” Lehtinen, “Pitkä” Lehtinen,
“Devil” Virtanen and “Kusti” Ahlgren.
Acoustic
music has always pleased Wallu´s ear and he does a lot of gigs all by
himself. As a duo with Pekka
Virtanen he has played many successful gigs and also with Pepe Ahlqvist
playing blues with harmonica and acoustic guitar. In the restaurants a successful combination was Wallu, Pepe
Ahlqvist and Jari “Ami” Huovinen. The first two played American blues and rock and Ami Finnish pop
and hit songs. They also
recorded a promo single under the name Ami & Wallu + Pepe Ahlqvist
with Belle Grino Band. The
single included two songs: “Toivotaan, toivotaan” (if you can recall
“Que sera, que sera” by José Feliciano) and “Sisäiset äänet” (Inner
Voices) written by Ami. In 2000 Wallu also produced a cd-record by Matti
Heinänen (ex-Combo, ex-Haikara, ex-Charlies) which was a cross section of
the singers career starting from the eighties. The record had also six new songs and in the backing group played
Wallu, “Kippari” Parviainen, “Hans” Helminen and “Masa”
Taponen.
Wallu & Friends
Wallu & Friends is Wallu´s top project at the moment. The basic idea is to gather together with the permanent members,
Wallu, Henkka and Käry (Kärkkäinen), a group that fits the promoters´ or restaurant owners´
needs ands wishes (read: their wallets). The choices alternate from a troubadour to a big band, when all the
friends are called to join the line-up. As guest stars are called Finnish top musicians, with whom Wallu
has worked during his long (44 years) career.
Blues musicians never
retire! They just fade away!
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