ABBA Biography Part 1
Bjorn and Benny, Agnetha and Anni Frid. That’s how they were first known as a group, and quite the name it was. But that cumbersome title has long been forgotten, while their more familiar name. ABBA, will be remembered as long as there are popular music fans who remember what it was like to climb their Wall of Sound.
The only non-Swedish member of ABBA, Anni-Frid Lyngstad was born to Alfred Haase and Synni Lyngstad in the town of Ballangen, Norway, I November 1945. Anni’s father was a German soldier and when returning to his unit in Germany before Frida’s birth, is believed to have been lost at sea.
Synni died before Frida reached her second birthday, and Frida was raised by her Swedish grandmother in Torshalla, Sweden. By the time she was eleven, she had made her public singing debut at a Red Cross show and in less than two years was working with a dance band. She continued to perform as a band vocalist during her first marriage to Ragnar Frederikkson, with whom she had a son Hans and a daughter Lise-Lotte.
Frida was signed to an EMI records contract after winning a Stockholm competition in 1967, and while her recording career did not prosper, by 1970 she was part of a stage act with her eventual second husband, Benny Anderson, and another couple, Bjorn Ulvaeus and his girlfriend Agnetha Faltskog.
Benny Andersson, a Stockholm native born in 1946, was part of an accordion act with his grandfather Efram and father Gosta before he reached the age of seven, and his natural talent ant love of music ked hom to master the piano as well. Within a decade he was playing keyboards with the Swedish band the Hep Stars, who by 1965 were the country’s top selling pop band
Benny left the Hep Stars in 1969 and began to concentrate of writing and performing with Bjorn Ulvaeus, a member of Sweden’s Hootenanny Singers, whom he had met in 1966. It was in 1969 when he met Frida, and soon became engaged to her, although they did not actually wed until 1978. The tree of them and Agnetha then began performing the cabaret act which eventually evolved into ABBA,
Benny and Bjorn wrote the first ABBA song in 1972 and for the next decade ABBA was the focus of his life. Following the demise of ABBA, he and Bjorn created the smash musical Chess with British lyricist Tim Rice.
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