Tone Holen is a Norwegian singer/songwriter, who’s informative years began in a small place not far
from Namsos. She began her singing career after moving to Ålesund, singing with several local bands
before forming her own “Tone Holen Band”. She now lives in Sandefjord.
Tone has a long experience as an artist, but has only recently started to write her own compositions, alone
or in collaboration with other writers. When she creates her songs she is inspired by the original roots of
country music and puts her heart and soul into them.
In 1997 Tone started to collaborate with well known Norwegian country artists such as Ottar Big Hand,
Tore Andersen (Norwegian Country Grammy 2009), Casino Steel, Bill Booth etc. Together they toured and
played at several large festivals in Norway and Denmark.
In 2006 Tone received critical acclaim for her work with Casino Steel on his album “There’s A Tear In My Beer”,
Autumn 2009 Tone began a collaboration with Randy Kohrs, a well known American producer in Nashville.
Randy was awarded a “Best Bluegrass Album” Grammy in 2008 for an album he produced for Jim Lauderdale.
Randy was impressed by Tone’s voice and her songs and invited her to his studio in Nashville to record.
He then put together a high class band of studio musicians to record a warm and fantastic country/bluegrass
album: “Blue Rose”. The production is of a high quality, but you would not expect anything different when the
musicians have played on albums by artists such as Alan Jackson, Vince Gill, Allison Krauss,
George Jones, Marty Stuart etc.
Randy Kohrs is a world class dobro player and for several years he was a member of Dolly Parton’s band.
The fiddle player Tim Crouch is also from the top division.
The well known gospel/country artist Sonya Isaacs sings background vocals on one of Tone’s songs.
Two of the songs on Tone’s debut album, ”Blue Rose” and ”Beyond Your Eyes”, are written especially for
Tone’s autistic daughter. As Tone explains: “This is what country music is about, heart and soul”.
