Mikory's ABBA-blog

"I enjoy nature, classical music - and flying"

In the new issue of Svensk Damtidning (4/2006) there's a big article about Frida. The content comes from the fabulous Frida DVD.

       - The mountains and the beautiful nature has helped me through sorrow and joy. It has helped me to stay in shape and has given me new friends, says Frida on the newly released "Frida - the DVD". It is part of a collection of her four solo albums.
     Here she talks about her fantastic musical career from when she started singing at age 13, how she was discovered when she appeared on "Hylands Hörna", the ABBA-days, but mostly about her life right now with her good friends in Zermatt below the impressive mountain Matterhorn.
     - I came here the first time in 1975, she says, together with Benny (Andersson) for an Easter holiday. She remembers how she was abandoned in the piste because she didn't know how to ski. Screaming and crying she finally managed to get down.
     - But the love to these mountains was established. Then it took some years before I returned.
Ten years ago Frida and her husband Ruzzo Reuss bought an apartment in Zermatt.
     - When Ruzzo passed away I moved here. I go hiking and skiing. I used to climb the mountains, but I don't do that much anymore. So this beautiful landscape keeps me in shape.

FRIENDS IN ZERMATT
Frida also talks about her best friends here. One of them is Heinz Julen who is an artist.
     - He helped me alot after my husband had died. We met on a creative level and we understood each other very well. Heinz also talks about Frida as a very honest and trusting friend.
     Another of her friends is Urs Biner who runs a restaurant where he also performs.
     - We were two souls that met, Frida and I. She and Heinz came here often to eat. I can't say that we love each other, but there's some sort of aura which I cannot describe. She really has everything! Frida talks fondly about Urs:
     - We often talk about things that are important to us. He writes poetry and memorable little books. Both Urs and Heinz are my dear friends.
     When Heinz in 2003 went to Stockholm for the Polar Music Prize together with Frida, everyone assumed he was the new man in her life.
     - What happened on the red carpet with Frida was quite funny. The photographers gathered around us. I wanted to step aside, but Frida pulled me close to her and said "Come on, you're my friend!". Afterwards a lot of people from the media contacted me and wanted to interview me since I was Frida's new lover. But she is more like my best friend.
     When "Mamma Mia!" opened at Cirkus in Stockholm Frida was there and so were Benny, Björn and Agnetha.
     - It was like a farewell to the part of my life that belongs to ABBA. I have had the dream of doing something new with ABBA, but not a tour, Frida says.
     Benny, Björn, Agnetha and I are in contact, but not very often. When we met at the premiere of "Mamma Mia!" in Stockholm Agnetha and I had a very loving and sisterly contact. We share so many memories from the ABBA-days. But I have lived abroad for 25 years.
     Nowadays she doesn't feel the same strong motivation to pursue her musical career.
     - I play alot of golf, which my husband Ruzzo taught me to love. I would also like to take flying lessons. I have taken one. I get goosebumps from the beautiful nature, classical music and opera and just to be enjoy a sunset over these mountains.
     Frida doesn't like to stay out late and party anymore. But sometimes her friend Heinz takes her out to meet people and have a good time. Zermatt has a lot of nice restaurants.
     Few people have experienced the high and lows of life like Frida. Her mother took her to Sweden to escape the rage from other Norwegians after she became pregnant with a German soldier.

MONICA Z A ROLE MODEL
There are no doubt about the fact that Frida found her way in life. Before ABBA she was successfull with colleagues like Björn Skifs and Charlie Norman. She worked at Folkan with Lasse Berghagen. She liked to sing jazz and pop and one of her role models were Monica Zetterlund. But she didn't care much for rock'n'roll.
     - I thought the Hep Stars were horrible! Little did I know that Benny (who at the time was a member of Hep Stars) would become my husband!
      It all came together when Frida and Benny started working with Agnetha and Björn. That story we all know. ABBA lasted until 1982. The only one who has ever said that it would have been fun to do something with ABBA again is Frida.
     She moved to London, alone, her kids were grown and had their own lives.
     - Sweden became to small for me, Frida says in the interview on the new DVD. I couldn't go outside without speculations about me and a possibly new man. I couldn't accept being a person talked about that I didn't recognise as myself.
     - When you move abroad you change as a person. You have to build up a new life and that makes you grow. I didn't feel rootless though. I'm very grounded in myself. I have tried my wings, broken up and started all over again many times in my life. To be able to do so you must have an inner strength.
    In 1984 Frida fell in love with Ruzzo Reuss von Plauen, who was more Swedish than his name suggested, his mother was Swedish and lived in Sweden. Frida and Ruzzo settled down in Freibourg in Switzerland. Together they had 15 years of happiness before Ruzzo died in cancer in 1999. Just one year earlier her daughter Lise-Lott died in a car accident in the US.

STRONG FAITH IN GOD
Once again Frida was alone with endless sorrow and prepared for another break up.
     - I'm strong in myself. I also have a strong faith in God, Frida said in an interview in Svensk Damtidning. That is why I've been able to go on.
     Her engagement in environmental issues and working with the anti drug foundation Mentor has probably helped too. She is a good friend of queen Silvia, who also works with Mentor. When the queen celebrated her 50th birthday Frida performed "Dancing Queen" together with The Real Group. This fantastic performance is also included on the DVD.
     One of the most beautiful songs in the box set is "Även En Blomma". A song that Frida really feel strongly about.
     - It's a song about getting older. In that song you can find my connection with nature and how I feel about other people. And it also describes how you want to grow and develop from everything you go through.

I've been "tagged"

Four Jobs You Have Had In Your Life:

1. Switch board operator

2. Book store clerk

3. Personal Secretary

4. Graphic Designer

Four Movies You Could Watch Over and Over:

1. ABBA - The Movie

2. Yentl

3. New York, New York

4. What's Up Doc?

Four Places You Have Lived:

1. Sollentuna

2. Upplands Väsby

3. Melbourne, Australia

4. Back in Upplands Väsby

Four TV Shows You Love To Watch:

1. The Sopranos

2. Footballer's Wives

3. Commander In Chief

4. Desperate housewives

Four Places You Have Been On Vacation:

1. Greece

2. Great Britain

3. Spain

4. Sweden

Four Websites You Visit Daily:

1. www.aftonbladet.se

2. Google

3. ABBA - The Site

4. Stickigt

Four Of Your Favorite Foods:

1. Kroppkakor

2. Chocolate

3. Lasagna

4. Torsk

Four Places You Would Rather Be Right Now:

1. On my sofa (with entire flat completely clean)

2. London

3. Malaga

4. Melbourne

Four Bloggers You Are Tagging:

1. Nico

2. 100001 listan 

3. Deckarmamma

4. Linda

"Young and sweet, only seventeen"

A couple of weeks ago, Expressen's weekly magazine Hallå! published some previously unknown photos of a very young Agnetha. They had been forgotten for 38 years...

When Bibbi Wangström cleaned out her attic she made a discovery. Pictures of a young Agnetha Fältskog, who was dreaming of being discovered.

In the spring of 1967 Agnetha Fältskog had just turned 17. The world seemed a distant place, but the dream of a break through in Sweden is present in the young teenager's heart.
     Agnetha has already become a vocalist in the local band Bernt Enghardts Orkester in Jönköping where she sings her own song "Jag Var Så Kär" every Saturday night.
     The song became Agnetha's first hit and went straight to number 4 on Svensktoppen. It was around that time she made an appointment with local Jönköping photographer Ragnar Eriksson for a series of portraits and full figure shots. Mostly because she wanted to have some pictures of herself in her new fashionable clothes.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER DIED LAST SPRING
The photos have been forgotten for a long time and were almost thrown out when it was time to clean out the attic in the house were the photographer Ragnar Eriksson had lived. But someone spotted a box of negatives tucked away in a drawer.
     - Ragnar, who took the pictures, was my uncle, say Bibbi Wangström who was there in the attic when the negatives were found.
     - He lived in Norrahammar, south of Jönköping where he worked in the mills. But his passion was photography. In 1963 he acquired a photo studio in Jönköping and changed his career.
     And here she is, Agnetha, who just has turned 17. Make-up, hairstyle and clothes shows that the Carnaby Street fashion has found its way to Jönköping. White net stockings, Mary Quant shoes and a short girly dress.

A GAP BETWEEN HER TEETH
Make-up and hairstyle are typical of the times. A 60's make-up with faint lips which is in style again right now. And the characteristic gap between her teeth was of course present already back then. One of the pictures Ragnar took ended up on the cover of Agnetha's second single "Utan Dej" with "Slutet Gott Allting Gott" as the B-side. These two songs were also written in her room at home in Jönköping. They were typical songs for the time and they laid the foundation for her future world career.
     - Both of them have that characteristic second voice pitch which made people compare me to Connie Francis, Agnetha has said.
     Seven years later she was married to Björn Ulvaeus and on her way to conquer the world together with ABBA. Something she couldn't even have imagined on that afternoon in Ragnar Eriksson's photo studio in Jönköping.

You can see more of the pictures in the Agnetha photo album!

New Frida Book!

Just received the good news that Jean-Marie Potiez and Philippe Elan, both long time ABBA- and Frida fans, will publish a new book as a tribute to Frida. The publisher is Schwarzkopf. It will have 160 pages and approximately 200 pics in both black and white and in colour. The book will be in both German and English.
     I for one really look forward to this book, as Jean Marie Potiez has written ABBA-books before which I really have enjoyed, and he also was behind the EMI-collection double CD, "Frida 1967-1972" of Frida's early work. I'm quite sure we will get to see some rare pictures of Frida. The previous books by Mr. Potiez has had some really fantastic photos. Philippe Elan who is a great singer, is famous to us ABBA-fans for having released a "Frida-CD" with French versions of some of Frida's best songs. The book will be available from 1 May 2006.

ACCORDING TO AMAZON.DE THE BOOK WILL BE AVAILABLE IN MARCH!

1976 "We need time to catch up with ourselves"

Stikkan Anderson, ABBA's manager is overlooked a lot nowadays in my opinion. In this interview we get to see some of what an energetic, opinionated and talented person he was. The interview was published in VeckoRevyn No 19, 1976.
* * * * *
Stikkan and ABBA are laying low for four months:
     - We need time to catch up with ourselves

ABBA has disappeared for several months ahead. Their fans in Sweden won't see or hear from them this summer - not on TV, in interviews or on the folk park stages. Here their manager Stikkan Anderson explains why.
     - They need to breathe.

It's going to be quiet about ABBA for a while. No more interviews, photosessions, TV-shows, travelling - nothing.
     During the following four months Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Björn and Benny will be invisible to the world. Together with their manager Stikkan Anderson they will lay low - to be able to catch up with
themselves and their enormous success. To have a chance to breathe.
     Both ABBA and Stikkan are aware that it will lead to an outcry of disappointment both on the continent and here at home, in Sweden. They are jumping off the caroussell just as their new song "Fernando" is becoming a number 1 hit the world over. The phones at their headquarter on Baldersgatan 1 n Stockholm is ringing off the hook. TV-stations, radiostations and magazines in Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain and the USA all want to get interviews and guest appearances from "the new Beatles".
     But Stikkan has decided. The four members of ABBA has turned off their phones, and Stikkan very hesitantly agreed to talk to VeckoRevyn for this interview, the last one for several months. He thinks that ABBA owes their Swedish fans an explanation to why Swedish television have to buy an ABBA-show from Australia to be able to show them here at home.
     Stikkan is sitting at his enormous desk in the magnificent building where his record company Polar Music and his publishing company Sweden Music now has their offices. The house is one of the investments made possible by ABBA's success the last couple of years.
     He seems tired, stressed out and under pressure.
     - There will be a new ABBA album this fall, in October. I have a tape here, with melodies written by Björn and Benny during the few occassions they have had a chance to write. I immediately have to write lyrics to them. But to be able to do that I have to go to my country house, out in the archipelago. And to be able to do that I have to cancel alot of what's already booked. I don't know how... There will be a lot of travelling for me in the near future. I travel instead of ABBA. I keep in touch with our people abroad, handle the practictal things with recording companies, publishers etc.

ABBA'S FANTASTIC WORLDWIDE SUCCESS
     - It takes a lot of time to write, produce and record and album. We just have to be able to fit that in. We have to follow up on the success abroad. Find sequels and record them at the same pace as the hit
charts wants them, so to speak. If we don't find the time to write new material  ABBA would be finished very quickly! It's just a question of survival. I hope and pray that our Swedish fans will understand that
that's the reason we have to get away for a while. That we need to write new songs instead of touring the folk parks this summer...
     When we did this interview with Stikkan, ABBA's song "Fernando" had the following positions:
     No 1 in Australia
     No 1 in the Netherlands
     No 1 in Belgium
     No 5 in Germany
     No 8 in France
and the song was in the top 10 in Great Britain, Switzerland, Austria and it was climbing the charts in the USA - and in Sweden!
     We asked Stikkan to explain how ABBA, a band from small Sweden, which up until a couple of years ago was considered a "third world country" when it came to pop music, were able to have a world wide
success only matched by the Beatles. Was it the magic of the Eurovision Song Contest that set off this golden avalanche - or would it have happened anyway?
     Stikkan rubs his eye with a tired gesture, he has talked about this many times before. But he knocks the last of the tobacco out of his pipe and replies:
     - It's a big exaggeration that the Eurovision Song Contest victory has meant so much for ABBA. It only meant that our venture abroad came quicker. "Waterloo", for example, was a hit in a lot of countries -
Japan, Australia and the USA - where they never have heard of the contest! The song had what we called "potential". It would have been a hit without the Eurovision Song Contest. We proved that theory the year
before, with "Ring Ring". We ended up on second place in the Swedish contest and didn't get the chance to show it off internationally in the Eurovision. But it still became a hit on the continent. If you have the right song, it will be a hit without that extra help. If you have the wrong song you can play in the Eurovision for 14 years, but people won't like it anyway! The song has to have what we call "it" to be a success.
So the song is more important than the performers, is that what you mean?
      - In principal, yes. If you have a famous artist but you have the "wrong" song, you don't have a chance. That, of course, doesn't mean that the performers don't matter, but with the right song and the right
artist the song will be even bigger. And last longer.
     - People in the world love ABBA. They are a "clean" group, as they say. They are ordinary young people, who behave in a good manner. They mean good PR for Sweden and for nice young people. It's not about alcohol, drugs or hashish - it's about four happy, nice, young human beings who like to sing and perform. And they do what is expected of them. ABBA is successfull "marriage" between good songs and good artists.
Is there a way to measure the value of PR ABBA has meant for Sweden?
     - To measure it is difficult. But I can point out what they said in Australia, both at the consulate and the chamber of commerce they were very happy. Suddenly it felt really good to be Swedish in Australia. But ABBA's popularity also had a practical meaning. CEOs of large corporations called the chamber of commerce and said: "I just heard ABBA on the radio and I came to think about the fact that Sweden
has some excellent technological companies. I would like to know what you can offer in that field." So ABBA are of obvious export value for Sweden. We are making PR for Sweden both direct and indirect.
Have you received any acknowledgement for that here in Sweden?
     - No! Stikkan's answer comes before I even finished the question, and his face shows both irony and bitterness.
     - But maybe we will get some later on. In Great Britain not just the Beatles, but a lot of other artists have received awards for what they have done for their country.
What is the trademark of ABBA, apart from being nice and a little sexy?
     - The thing that makes ABBA stand out is that we make so many different kinds of songs. We never release two similar songs after another. We are trying to do something new all the time. After a rocksong we release a slower song, like "Fernando". Many performers take the easy way out. They get one hit and then they think that all they have to do is to copy that song. That is very dangerous, you have to
reinvent yourself all the time...
How much have you decided when it comes to ABBA's costumes, looks and appearance?
     - With time I have left those kind of decisions. It has never been a very important issue for me to get involved in, and the same thing goes for all my artists. ABBA are allowed to express themselves. Write
what they want, dress the way they want, almost! When you're dealing with these kind of things you should lead very carefully and cautiously. You have to discuss.
     - Here at the office we have what I would like to call "a forcefull democracy". We discuss everything that has to do with ABBA a lot. Naturally, nothing gets done if I have said no! But I don't have to say no very often, since Agnetha, Frida, Björn and Benny feel and think like me about most things. And Björn and Benny are owners together with me so we always have to have a "3-0" vote before anything gets done. We have a very good collaboration.

I WANT IT DONE MY WAY
If you were to rank the reasons to ABBA's success abroad and here at home - what would it look like?
     - I would say:
     1. The songs
     2. The girls - Agnetha and Frida's voices, talent and their sexy charisma
     3. The arrangement of the music and the backgrounds
     4. As a very strong number four I would list marketing.
     People have no idea how much time we spend on this. The follow up of the success, the control, the checking of every little detail takes a lot of time for all of us at the company.
Are you a self taught marketer or do you hire professionals?
     - No, I think I do it better than any professional. It's just a matter of common sense. I think that things should be done in a certain way, and I stand by that. I make sure it gets done in the way I have decided. And it sometimes is interpreted like I'm a cynic, a cold and hard person. Which is completely wrong. I just have to do what my heart tells me, what I feel is the right thing to do.
Does your "common sense" work as well on the international market, which is usually harder and involves more intriguing?
     - With common sense comes that you should be receptive, open to logic reasoning. If someone can convince me that I'm wrong, I will naturally change my opinion. Because even though I know all markets in the world by now, and know how they work, there might be details I'm not aware of. Because of that I hand pick people to watch out for our interests. So if someone says to me: "That's probably right in Sweden and in Europe, but in Japan it's different", I will listen very carefully to that person.
How do the markets vary, and how is the taste in music different in different parts of the world?
     - There is one that we call the Germanian taste which includes Scandinavia, German, Poland, Checkoslovakia, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and it ends in the middle of Brussels. It's the equivalent to Country and Western - with a German beat. South of Brussels we have the Latin taste, which consists of France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Yugoslavia. There you find the big gestures, story telling songs, "crying" performances. These are facts we have to take into consideration. When we have written a song we say: "This one is good for this part of the world, but not for that part". Great Britain is a special country. It's very hard to get a break there. Not many succeed there.
But ABBA did?
     - Oh yes! It took some time, but now it's done!
Is there any country you wouldn't bother to try to succeed in?
     - Yes, we are only doing a half-heartedly attempt in South America. ABBA are present there, but we aren't making a huge effort, because the financial systems in those countries are chaotic. It doesn't matter how many records we sell there, we never see any money from it. It's only a deficit for us. We sit here and send out our master tapes and films but we get very little in return.
Isn't France a difficult market too?
     - Yes, but the funny thing is that ABBA is one of the five non-French acts who are really big there. This week we were number 8 on their chart. That is enormous, especially when you think of the fact that ABBA sing in English, and that's not the most beautiful language for French ears. So we are really pleased that the French like us so much. It was "Fernando" that helped us achieve that.

My ABBA Blog is a winner!

What a great way to start 2006! A really big thanks to all of you who voted for this blog in ABBA Plaza's annual competition for the best ABBA site of the year. I was very happy to receive the e-mail telling me I have won this competition, today from Robert Verbeek, the owner of ABBA Plaza.
     And an extra thanks to all of you who have written to me, telling me how much you appreciate my site.
I have partly spent the holidays going through old ABBA stuff, and I have started translating articles and scanning pictures.
     I wish you all a happy new year and all the best for 2006! Here in Sweden the days are very short now, the darkness is horrible. But now we have gotten quite a lot of snow and that makes it a little brighter.