Morten Harket

The Norwegian singer and musician Morten Harket is known primarily as the vocalist of the synth-pop group a-ha, and only then as a solo artist. Each of his songs sounds unique because of the voice in the range of 5 octaves. Harket holds the world record for the duration of one note among male performers: 20.2 seconds on the track "Summer Moved On".

Morten Harket was born on September 14, 1959 in the Norwegian city of Kongsberg. He is the second of five children of teacher Henny Katharina Johansen and physician Rydar Harket. As a child, Morten always had a noisy company: brothers Gunwald (1956), Haakon (1961) and Hjetil (1967), sister Ingunn (1964).

Harket's acquaintance with music happened early, as he himself said in an interview. At the age of 3, his father took him to a symphony orchestra concert. The abundance of harmonious sounds surprised the child a lot. The conductor, noticing this, took Morten in his arms. He was incredibly happy and soaked his pants in front of the audience.

Harket's school years were not like a fairy tale - neither his peers nor the teacher understood the unique boy. Indeed, instead of hooliganism with his classmates, the boy collected butterflies, grew orchids and corals. The child was often beaten.

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Perhaps the biography of the Norwegian would have developed differently if not for his father. Rydar Harket was a musician in his youth, but, by the will of his parents, having mastered a serious profession, he became a doctor. In Morten, a man strove to embody what he himself did not achieve.

When the boy was 15 years old, his parents hired a music teacher. Morten was lazy and capricious, as a result he had to give up on the career of a great performer. The situation was saved by Harket's cousin, who in 1974 introduced him to the work of the group Uraih Heep. Downhole hits revived the desire to go on stage in the young man.

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Then Morten decided to start a band. Brother Haakon supported the idea. Together they came up with a piece called Spirit Battle, based primarily on organ music. Morten even painted the cover: a flaming Jesus surrounded by demons. The album was never released.

After school, the question arose before Harket - the army or the institute. The choice fell on the second, and the motivation was extraordinary: the young man wore long hair, and in order not to cut it off, he entered the theological faculty. A year later, Morten got bored and nevertheless decided to repay his debt to his homeland. Then the musician studied for another year at the Faculty of Natural Sciences in Oslo.

To the young man, so outwardly similar to Patrick Swayze, he promised overwhelming success. Climbing the creative ladder began with Morten Harket with the blues band Soldier Blue. The guys played mostly jazz, which the Norwegian considered monotonous and inconvenient for improvisation. The main venues for the performance were clubs, eateries, Consberg cafeterias.

In September 1982 the group a-ha was formed. Morten became the third member of the band - Paul Vauctor and Magne Furuholmen played together from early childhood. Young people offered Harket a drummer position, since Paul did not want to share vocals. But in Harket youthful maximalism raged: he decided that he would sing, and nothing else. Finally, having gathered together, the troika of Norwegians left for London to seek glory.

At first, a-ha barely made ends meet: the three of them lived on two beds, starved and often quarreled. It's amazing how in the first 3 years, before the release of the legendary track "Take On Me", the band didn't break up. By the way, the single was recorded three times, and only from the final attempt in 1985 was it possible to reveal the full potential of Harket's voice and attract listeners.

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a-ha have recorded 11 albums, including a live compilation "Summer Solstice". In 2009, the group announced its disbandment, and in 2015, in honor of the 30th anniversary of the debut album, they got together again, allegedly for 2 years. The collective's activity continues now.

In 1993, Morten Harket released his debut solo album "Poetenes Evangelium", the title of which translates as "the gospel of the poets." The disc is the musical embodiment of an anthology of 20th century Norwegian poetry depicting the life and death of Christ.

The authorship of the words and music for the debut album does not belong to Harket, in fact he again acted as a vocalist. But he put more effort into the creation of the second collection "Wild Seed" (1995): he composed 5 songs and 9 melodies. There are 12 tracks in the album.

All of a-ha's works and the first two albums of Harket were recorded in English, but out of love for his native country, the singer created the Norwegian compilation Vogts Villa (1996). Some of the songs were born from scratch and the track "Vuggevise" is a re-read of the English song "Lay Me Down Tonight" from "Wild Seed".

For many years, Harket's solo work was suspended, which had a positive effect on the result. The album "Letter from Egypt", released in 2008, topped the Norwegian chart for 22 weeks. The promotion was aided by the performance at the 2007 Nobel Prize in Oslo with the singles "Letter from Egypt" and "Movies" and a consolidated concert by Harket, Voctor-Savoy and Furuholmen as solo artists.

"Out of My Hands" (2012) also graced the top of the Norwegian charts. BBC critic Nick Levine spoke positively of the album, noting that it has been the best new music ever since a-ha's breakup.

In 2014, the premiere of the sixth studio album "Brother" took place. The title track is inspired by the memoirs of British Islamist-turned-liberal activist Majid Nawaz. The video for this track was shot by Hollywood director Harold Zwart, the creator of the films "The Karate Kid" and "The Pink Panther - 2".

From the album's playlist, it is clear that Morten Harket has progressed as a writer and composer - 11 of the 12 songs he created in collaboration with Peter Quint and Ole Sverre Olsen, longtime friends and musicians.

Between the creation of the albums, the vocalist a-ha managed to sing with many performers: with the Scorpions at the MTV Unplugged concert he performed "Wind of Changes", with Hayley Westenra - "Children First", with the Pakistani band Junoon - "Piya". But mostly Harket collaborated with Norwegian musicians, because he knew how difficult it is for the inhabitants of Scandinavia to get out into the big world.

On the set of the video "Take On Me" in 1985, Morten Harket fell in love with his partner - actress Bunty Bailey, which led to a short romance. The girl went to Billy Idol, who was then at the height of his fame. The parting dealt a strong blow to Harket's pride.

A year later, model Patrice Bourke healed his mental wounds. The musician loved the chosen one very much, but the parents felt that something was wrong - they believed that Burke and Harket were only because of fame and money. As a result, the singer put an end to his toxic personal life. It turned out that the parents were right: immediately after the breakup, Burke wrote an article in the newspapers about the stormy relationship with Morten.

In 1987, at the airport, the singer met Camilla Malmquist, an actress. 2 years later, on February 11, the girl became the wife of Harket, and on May 14, a son, Jacob, was born. On December 31, 1990, the family was replenished with Jonathon, and on April 14, 1993, with Tomina. The shared photos show that the children are a copy of Camilla. In May 1998, after 8 years of marriage, the lovers separated.

In 1999, thanks to his brother Hjetil, Morten met Anna Mette Undlien, who gave birth to a daughter, Henny, from the musician on February 7, 2003. The novel ended in March 2005. It is interesting that the exemplary father left Henny Anna, but assured the press that he constantly visits his daughter.

A few months later, in August 2005, Morten began a relationship with personal assistant Ines Andersson. On September 16, 2008, the couple had a daughter, Carmen Poppy.

There is no news about the solo work of Martin Harket, but in October 2019 a-ha went on a world tour with their debut album "Hunting High and Low". Ireland, Great Britain, Netherlands, France, Germany, Poland and Russia are declared in the route.

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In January 2019, the 4th season of the Norwegian version of the show "The Voice" started. According to Harket's Instagram, he is one of the jury members.

1993 - "Poetenes Evangelium" 1995 - "Wild Seed" 1996 - "Vogts Villa" 2008 - "Letter from Egypt" 2012 - "Out of My Hands" 2014 - "Brother"

Morten Harket 's estimated Net Worth, Salary, Income, Cars, Lifestyles & many more details have been updated below.

Let's check, How Rich is Morten Harket in 2020?

Morten Harket Net Worth 2021

Morten Harket 's revenue is $1.8M in 2021. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Morten Harket and could vary in the range between $827.8K - $1.1M.

Morten Harket Net Worth 2020

Morten Harket 's revenue is $1.1M in 2020. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Morten Harket and could vary in the range between $808.5K - $1.1M.

Morten Harket Net Worth 2019

Morten Harket 's revenue is $1.2M in 2019. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Morten Harket and could vary in the range between $863.3K - $1.5M.

Morten Harket Net Worth 2018

Morten Harket 's revenue is $1.6M in 2018. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Morten Harket and could vary in the range between $580.9K - $1.9M.

Morten Harket Net Worth 2017

Morten Harket 's revenue is $1.7M in 2017. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Morten Harket and could vary in the range between $892.8K - $1.1M.

Morten Harket Net Worth 2016

Morten Harket 's revenue is $1.8M in 2016. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Morten Harket and could vary in the range between $756.6K - $1.7M.

Morten Harket Net Worth 2015

Morten Harket 's revenue is $1.5M in 2015. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Morten Harket and could vary in the range between $537.8K - $1.1M.

It is an overall forecast for the net worth of Morten Harket. The evaluation covers the latest 5 years and an approximation for next year. See above to learn how much money does Morten Harket make a year.

The range above shows an estimation based on evaluation generated by public information about sponsorships or other sources found on the internet. It's summarized data from Morten Harket' projects existing in AidWiki's repository. It's an approximation of the revenue compiled by AidWiki and may not correspond with the real amount.