Lacking the lasting fame and the cult status of their contemporaries Träd, Gräs och Stenar, the mainly instrumental group Kebnekajse was just as important in creating swedish. In the progressive rock movement they stood somewhere in the middle, between the politically and the musically progressive rock branches, where the first mainly played message-based music and the second had more in common with international rock scene. The band did not take a clear political stand, but being less experimental than Träd, Gräs och Stenar and staying further away from fusion than Samla Mammas Manna, they reached a wide audience. At the end of the '70s, Kebnekajse started to play rock, and quickly lost much of their popularity.

The driving force in Kebnekajse was guitarist Kenny Håkansson. In the '60s, he and drummer Pelle Ekman played together in T-Bones and in a band that later changed its name to Baby Grand Mother. In 1969, Håkansson, ekman, and bassist Bengt Linnarsson were recruited as the new backing for Hammond player Mecki Mark, becoming his Mecki Mark Men. In 1971, after a chaotic U.S. tour together with Sly & The Family Stone, Mark left and guitarist Rolf Scherrer was recruited. The new band took the name Kebnekajse after the highest mountain in Sweden, and started out as a mainly rock band in the tradition of Jimi Hendrix and Cream, releasing the debut album Resa Mot Okänt Mål in 1971. For the second album they recruited six new musicians: guitarists Glenngård and Böckler, percussionist Hassan, harmonica player Lindström, and drummer Netzler. Soon bassist Göran Lagerberg, who had played with Tages in the '60s, also joined the group. If the first album had been influenced by blues rock, the harmonies had indeed lacked some blues. On the second, self-titled album, Kebnekajse followed this less-bluesy path into folk rock, but very folk rock: melodic and sentimental, mostly played in minor keys. And though Kebnekajse tried out a number of different styles, this was the style that would make them famous.

In between long tours, the group released their third album, Kebnekaise III, showing more jazz influences than earlier albums but also more African influences, introduced by percussionist Johann Sebastian Bach, an immigrant from Guinea-Bissau. The entire fourth album was dedicated to African music, but at its release, half of the group had left, leaving Kebnekajse as a five-man band. The following years this disintegration continued, both crew-wise and musically. Primeln und Elefanten was released in 1977, but despite the title pointing toward Africa, the album was mainly a jazz rock affair, with clear fusion tendencies. And the folk music, both African and Swedish, was almost gone. After this, Håkansson left the band to start a solo career, and with him most of the creativity seemed to have left as well. Together with drummer Pelle Holm and keyboard player Per Lejring, the remaining three members released "Vi Drar Vidare" in 1978, a rock album that failed to make much impact. The members started to look for other jobs and some time around that year, Kebnekajse ceased to exist. Glenngård released a few solo albums and worked as a session musician, with ABBA, for example. Johann Sebastian Bach formed the band The Happy Boys, also including Netzler, but soon moved to Finland. ~ Lars Lovén, Rovi