Biography
In december 2004, the swedish countrymusic singer Cina (pronounces as Keena ) Samuelson, released her debut CD " From Country To Country". That album got a lot of attention. Mr Alan Perkins, wrote these lines in the countrymusic magazine, Up Country,UK, in April 2005: " This singer has produced a quality album from all viewpoints and has shown top quality writing skills with a range of songs that would do Music City proud".
The autumn of 2007 she released the new album "Laugh, Love & Live". Even this time, the album has got a lot of attention in several countries in Europe. In Belgium "Laugh, Love & Live" reached the American Music's "Top 100 2007" together with artists such as Gretchen Wilson, Kelly Willis, Travis Tritt and Eagles.
When Cina was seven years old she heard countrymusic for the first time, fell in love with that music and started to dream about being a countrysinger some day. In that early period of her life she performed at local parties as a singer and zitherist. She also sang in a childrenschoir but she thought that the songs were to easy, so after a lot of nagging she started to sing with the adultchoir instead. She became their leadsinger for a couple of years.
Then, when she was 13-years old she decided to start working with countrymusic. She performed at songcontests and small events and the audience liked her. For some years she sang together with different musicians but she dreamed about singing in a band, so together with some friends and her brother Berra Karlsson (today, one of the most famous steelguitarplayers in Sweden) she started the band Freetown Highway. This young band got a lot of attention. They toured all around Scandinavia, performed at TV- and radioshows, became Swedish Masters of Countrymusic at 1988 and rated as number four at Eurovision Countrymusic Contest in Holland 1989. At this time Cina was one of 25 artists, from the whole world, who was invited to perform at a big festival in Nashville Tennesse, where she had the pleasure to sing together with Charlie McCoy band.
After ten years together as a succesful band, Cina and Freetown Highway concluded their collaboration in 1995. But she continued to sing countrymusic and performed together with two musicians at clubs and companies. She also did backgroundvocals for rock- and soulartists and led songgroups for children.
At the summer of 2000 Cina once again stood on a big countrymusicscene, now as a soloact and together with the band The Springhill Boys. Cina and the boys are today a popular act to festivals and concerts in Scandinavia.