Karlsson and her band arranged all the songs, with novel instrumentation including cello, trumpet, bass clarinet, piano and percussion.

[5] He was born in a village in the forested Dalarna province, and grew up in poverty; his father was a primary school teacher, taking odd jobs to try to earn enough money to live on.

[10][11][12] Karlsson sings Omkring tiggarn från Luossa to the setting composed by the Swedish singer Gunde Johansson [sv]; he performed the song in ballad style, accompanied only by his acoustic guitar, on his 1963 album Dan Anderssons Dikter Och Visor.

[15][7] Helgdagskväll i timmerkojan [sv] was set to music by the Swedish singer, musician and sculptor Sven Scholander, known for his solo performances of Carl Michael Bellman's 18th century Fredman's Epistles.

All the songs have been arranged by Karlsson in folk style, with varied accompaniments including fiddle, guitar, trumpet, cello, double bass, and percussion.

[18] Göran Holmquist, in his review in Helsingborgs Dagblad, gave the disc a rating of 4/5, writing that "with her fingertip-sensitive arrangements she brings Dan Andersson's poetry about dreams, breakup and longing to our time.

"[21] Rootsy.nu wrote that "hereby Black ballads and Sofia Karlsson are appointed to 2005's best albums in the genres Swedish song and folk music.

Karlsson had in Erikssor's view broadened the range of Andersson interpretations with her folk music background, the settings of her pianist, Sofie Livebrant, and the different styles and tempos in the album.

He noted that the selection of Andersson's work represented the settings of seven different composers, making the album varied and full of personality, with diverse instrumentation, some of it unusual.

All the tracks, though, were in Jonsson's opinion united by Karlsson's "warm and caring voice", presenting Andersson's century-old words in a "young and natural" way.

The combination of voice and music became "magical" in Omkring tiggarn från Luossa, and the last track, Minnet, was in Jonsson's view "stunning": he thought Andersson would be smiling.

[25] Sonoloco reviewer Ingvar Loco Nordin praised the album as "a revelation", placing Karlsson as one of the great Andersson interpreters, alongside Gunde Johansson and Thorstein Bergman.

In his view, Karlsson had revealed the meaning of the too-familiar texts, hidden in plain sight by the traditional style of interpretation.

Omkring tiggarn från Luossa, too, was in his View astonishingly free of the cultural accretion around such an iconic song, an upbeat version that Nordin, a musician, states he could never have imagined.

The statement read "With a blending of Swedish song tradition, folk-musical precision and playful borrowing of genres, Sofia Karlsson's album Black ballads made Dan Andersson unmissable for yet another generation.