Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid = ABBA

Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad, better known simply as Frida, was born November 15, 1945 in Ballangen outside of Narvik, Norway. Her father was a German soldier, and her mother was a Norwegian teenage girl. Even as a young girl, Frida knew that she wanted to be a singer.

Göran Bror Benny Andersson was born December 16, 1946 in Stockholm, and spent much of his youth in the suburb of Vällingby. Music entered Benny’s life when he was very young. At the age of six he got his first accordion and started playing together with his father Gösta and his grandfather Efraim. 

Björn Kristian Ulvaeus was born in Gothenburg on April 25, 1945. When he was six years old the family moved to the small town of Västervik, and this is where Björn grew up. In the mid-Fifties, Björn fell in love with rock’n’roll and skiffle. Eventually, he joined a folk music group called the West Bay Singers.

Agnetha Åse Fältskog was born on April 5, 1950 in the town of Jönköping in Sweden. Music came to Agnetha early in life: at the age of six she wrote her first song, ’Två små troll’ (”Two Little Trolls”), and ten years later she started singing in a dance band called Bernt Enghardts.

The ABBA story began in June 1966 when Björn met Benny for the first time. Björn was a member of the Hootenanny Singers, a very popular folk music group, while Benny played keyboards in Sweden’s biggest pop group of the 1960s, The Hep Stars.  The pair wrote their first song together later that year, and by the end of the decade they had established a regular partnership as composers. By that time, Benny had left The Hep Stars, while the Hootenanny Singers only existed in the recording studio. The Hootenanny Singers released their records on the Polar Music record label, owned by Stig Anderson, who was to become ABBA’s manager. Stig also contributed lyrics to many ABBA hits during the first years of the group’s career.

In the spring of 1969, Björn and Benny met the two women who were to become not only their fiancées but also the other half of ABBA. Agnetha had been a successful solo singer since releasing her first single in 1967. She and Björn were married in July 1971. Frida started her recording career shortly before Agnetha. Frida was of Norwegian origin, but had moved to Sweden at a very early age. Benny and Frida didn’t get married until October 1978.

At first, the four members collaborated musically mainly by contributing songs, instrumental backing, production work or backing vocals to the recordings they each made as solo or duo acts. In 1970, the attractive sound of their four voices combined gave them the idea to put together the cabaret act Festfolk. This first attempt failed, but in the spring of 1972 they recorded a song called ‘People Need Love’, garnering a medium-sized hit in Sweden. At this time they called themselves Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid.

Encouraged by this success, they entered the 1973 Swedish selections for the Eurovision Song Contest with the song ‘Ring Ring’. They finished third, but the single and the album of the same name competed for the top positions on the Swedish chart. ‘Ring Ring’ also became a hit in several other European countries.

The group entered the selections again in 1974, this time with ‘Waterloo’, which took them all the way to the finals in Brighton, England. By this time they had changed their name to ABBA, an acronym of their first names. ABBA was also the name of a Swedish canned fish company, which luckily agreed to lend their name to a pop group. The Eurovision Song Contest on April 6, 1974 turned out to be the most famous moment in ABBA history, when the group won the international juries over with ‘Waterloo’.

Just thought you could use a little background.  You gotta start somewhere.