Today it was revealed that Benny and his orchestra will continue their tradition of playing at the last "Allsång" at Skansen in Stockholm. This summer it will be on the 5th of August and the show will be televised by SVT.
Or something like that. I was so glad and excited when I got this e-mail from Blogged:
"Dear Mikory's ABBA-blog author,
Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it an 8.4 score out of (10) in the Entertainment/Music category of Blogged.com.
This is quite an achievement!
http://www.blogged.com/director
We evaluated your blog based on the following criteria: Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design, and Writing Style.
After carefully reviewing each of these criteria, your site
was given its 8.4 score
We’ve also created Blogged.com score badges with your
score prominently displayed. Simply
visit your website’s summary page on Blogged.com:
Click on the "Show this rating on your blog!" link underneath the score and follow the instructions provided.
Please accept my congratulations on a blog well-done!!
Sincerely,
Amy Liu
Marketing Department
amy@blogged.com
Thank you, Blogged - and thank you Amy!
I used to love this picture. I had it on a T-shirt from the Official Fan Club too, which I proudly wore when I attended the Summer Tour Concert in 1975. Ah, Good Days...
This article was published in Swedish Television's weekly magazine Röster i Radio/TV, issue 46, 1978.
I knew I wanted to be a singer allready when I was seven years old.
Torshälla in the beginning of the 50's was still an idyllic place. The old houses leaned on each other and was every architect's dream to do something with. The town gossip had the proportions of a small town. You knew people, by age and careers.
In this little town with the 5.000 people living there Anni-Frid and I grew up.
We never went to the same school and we weren't best friends - but we both belonged to an organisationn URK - Ungdomens Röda Kors [The Red Cross Youth Division] - and we played together sometimes. In the basement of one of the official buildings in the town we wove baskets and made armslings (mitellas). Anni-Frid didn't do much of the woveing, instead she sang a lot: "Que sera, sera, det sker vad än ska ske, din framtid kan ingen se, que sera, sera..."
She was fantastically beautiful and her voice was clear as crystal. She sang all the time. We admired her. She got to be Barnens Dags Prinsessa and ride in the parade through the town with a crown on her head:
– I remember that day very vividly, says Anni-Frid. I felt so bad I thought I couldn't do it.
Her debut as a singer happened at a Röda Kors soaré. On the Folkets Hus stage. Dressed in a folklore costume including a bonnet, 11 years old she sang: "Fjorton år tror jag visst att jag var" [I believe I was 14 years old]...
We wanted it to work out well for her, because we know that she was living with her grandmother and didn't have a father or a mother. It was almost something romantic about her, almost like in the books we read. And she had the cutest smile, she wrinkled her nose when she smiled.
The everything went so quickly. We outgrew URK and each other. We only said a quick hello when we just made it on the 7.30 bus on the way to Eskilstuna where Anni-Frid attended realskolan and I went to the girl's school.
– I never had any other plans. As a 7 year old I knew that it was a singer I was going to be, Anni-Frid says smiling, before I get the chance to ask her the next question. Well, I guess we all had understood that. At the tender age of 13 she went touring with orchestras "just because it was such a lot of fun just to sing". I didn't have any time for boys at that time.
At the schooldances she performed Glenn Miller songs while the rest of us danced in the dimly lit gymnasium.
SANG AND SANG
She sang and sang and sang. She won a talent competition and started taking singing lessons from the famous operasinger Folke Andersson. During my first time as a reporter in Eskilstuna at the magazine "Folket" I wrote some articles about her every now and then. It's 15 years ago...
In ABBA's bastion at Baldersgatan 1 in Stockholm, in a room where the successes of ABBA's literally are plastered on the walls in the shape of gold records from all around the world, I get to meet Anni-Frid again. She is coming straight from her singing lesson, in "civilian clothes", beige pants, blue sweater and beige boots with high heels and she has the red hair in a braid on her back. She is beautiful, friendly, a little hesitant. I don't blame her. Your childhood is something to be careful with.
We talk about ABBA, about right now and of the future. And only a little bit of our common ground, the same town we grew up in. The reason for this interview is that the American TV-show with Olivia John which ABBA participated in as guest performers now will be shown on Swedish TV. On the show ABBA will perform "Money, Money, Money" and "Fernando". Why did these songs get chosen for this show?
– Simply because they are songs that have appeared on the US charts and they are known to the American public, the songs they know us from, says Anni-Frid.
– To be on a show like this is amazing, a lot of fun. Everyone knows exactly what to do and when to do it, no waiting at all, everything just flows in a very professional way.
– And Olivia was a very nice girl. No manners at all.
On the show Anni-Frid sings a few operatic notes. And today she just came back from her singing lesson.
– I don't want to stand still. One has to look beyond ABBA. One day ABBA will end, whenever that happens, I don't know, and you have to prepare for that. If you want to stay in this business you have to work for it. You can't just sit on your behind and think that everything is allright.
– So opera is the next thing for you?
– It's possible. I think it's a lot of fun to work on. It's the thing that I love to sing and I love to do the odd things now and then. I would like to do it more, but I realise that when we are travelling there's no possibility to do it. If I was to start howling in my hotel room I think I would be a nuisance. That is why Frida takes private operatic lessions as often as she can. She has a daily appointment which she is making the most of.
– I could rehearse in the privacy of my home, but it doens't work out the way I want it to do. It doesn't give me the peace and quiet that I long for, since children and their friends keep comping home at all hours. So in that case it's better for me to go away and see my song coach.
How is ABBA evolving.
– Naturally, it's an undergoing development in what way is hard for me to say. One thjng os for sure though, - it becomes more and more difficult, it takes longer time to finish a complete album. We are becoming more and more critical. It really takes blood, sweat and tears when the boys (Björn and Benny) are writing new material. It's is very important that they are left alone with the creative process. And in the meantime Anni-Frid deals with other aspects, i e interviews and stage outfits.
– It's just they way it has developed. I throughly enjoy the clothes aspect. Not long ago I went to Milan and bought some new outfits. Everyone thinks that our clothes are such a well thought out aspect, butit only came to look like that because we love clothes so much. And I think it should be glitter and glamour on the stage. It has become synonymous with us.
The world star from Thermaniesgatan i Eskilstuna is on her way together with the rest of the ABBA-members to conquer one of the biggest markets there is; Japan. It was the world's biggest kick when ABBA conqured Brighton in Enland in 1974. Back then everything was new, and exciting. Back then everything was "new", "exciting" and thrilling".
The excitement may be not be as prevalent anymore. The thing with fame and fortune is that the longer you have experienced it, your need for it has been met. It's not as important as it was before you had it. Instead its channeled to an inner satisfaction to be able to work with what you really love. And it if that works out tremendously then it becamos the best thing you have ever done. Still, to this day when we enter the charts with our songs it means as much as it did the first time. Anni-Frid glances at her watch, it's late afternoon and at home in the Lidingö Villa her youngest daughter, Lise-.Lotte have arrived home from school. – I try to be there when then they get home, but I miss out everyone now and then.
So we end the inteveriw by talking abou the ABBA fans - are they children?
– No, ¬don't think so Anni-Frid repies. Abroad our audiences are very mixed from the ages 4 to 80, but at home here in Swedeen it seems like it's not quite OK to like ABBA. People don't dare tell each other that they like ABBA.
But there are some brave adults who dare to stand up and say that they like us. One woman who would have loved ABBA is my grandmother.
She really supported my singing once she realized that I was dead set serious about doing this.
Who knows, in 15 years time I'll might be doing a inteveriw with Anni-Frid Lyngstad, the opera singer...
Frida visited the cast of "Mamma Mia!" in
New York on 24 April 2008.
...about Agnetha's ordeal in Jönköping.
AGNETHA AND I COULD SIT FOR HOURS
DREAMING ABOUT BECOMING FAMOUS
Not since Agnetha Fältskog became worldfamous has she been back in her hometown - not until now! Here some of her closest friends from the past tells their stories about how they remember Agnetha.
Jönköping wasn't exactly considered the most "happening town" But that was about to change. In connection with the city's 700th anniversary has the normally so quiet and peacful town decided to have a huge celebration, which even will be televised.To top it off the town has convinced Agnetha Fältskog to parttake in the festivities, which she will be hosting. It's the first since Agnetha became ABBA-Agnetha with the whole world as a stage when she will be back to sing. So there's no wonder that the Jönköping citizens are a bit excited now. Agnetha probably thought long and hard before she accepted this honour. She has become more reclusive and avoid the big stages. And on top of it all this TV-show is going to be aired live. The jubilée show went with a theme of the many memories of Agnetha during the years. The show will be something special for Agnetha fans, a tribute to Jönköpings daughter. Many of the performing artists are Agnetha's closest friends, most of them have known her forever. Her mother Birgit, the food market cashier and her dad Ingvar, who works for the local electricity company will keep their fingers crossed.
One of the guest were kept a secret until the very latest minute. It was Agnetha's old muscial teacher from school, Eivor Stenäng and her girl choir. There was a lot of secrecy about their performance. Saxons did manage to get a chat with Eivor ahead of the show.
- It's going to be fantastic to meet Agnetha again, it has been a while, 20 years. Agnetha was 13 and I myself was 21 and new as a musicteacher, Eivor rembers. I had so many students and I didn't have the chance to get to know Agnetha personally, But I do recall the girl with the long blond hair who loved to perform and sing.
- It was difficult to get any of the girls to sing solo in front of the class. That is probably why I remember Agnetha so vividly I also remember that she had a beautiful, clear voice, but I couldn't dream that she would one day become world famous.
One of the local singers Agnetha insisted on having with her on the show was her best friend from her teens - Lena Lagerkvist.
- Actually there were three of us that were inseparable; Agnetha, I and a girl named Elisabeth Strub. We did everything together and had a lot of fun. Sometimes we went out dancing but for most of the time we stayed by yourselves and sang together. Singing and music were our greatest hobby, Lena tells us.
- When we weren't singing we were dreaming about what big stars we were going to become and what fantastic careers we would have, Lena laughs.
And the trio had some engagements.
- We sang at Folkets Park and at Rigolette which was the cool place to be in Jönköping during that time. For two years we were lucky to participate in the New Year's Revue produced by Vincent Bagge.
Elisabeth and Lena got 'normal' jobs. Only Agnetha persued the music career all of three of them had dreamt about.
- I'm not surprised at all that it was Agnetha who made it. She was very musically talented and the one who was most competitive and focused on her goal. There was just nothing else that interested her. Her biggest idol was Connie Francis and she tried hard to sound like her, Lena remembers. I will never forget the first time I saw her on TV. I was so happy for her, I got chills all over my body!
GREAT TO SEE EACH OTHER
- We kept in touch a little while after Agnetha's breakthrough. She used to visit me when she came back home to
Jönköping. But after both Elisabeth and I moved away we lost touch. It will be great to see each other again. To see what she's like today.
- Back when I knew her she was an ordinary girl. Happy and funny, great to be with. She was quite shy and soft, definitely not the kind that steps over anyone else in life.
- I don't think she has changed that much. Of course somethings must have changed when you become world famous, but I firmly believe that deep inside she is still the same kind and ordinary girl that I know, said an excited Lena a couple of weeks before the show.
Agnetha got to experience another friend from her past. It was the band leader Bernt Enghardt. It was in his band Agnetha started singing.
- Agnetha and I worked together for three years. Then I left that group for another one, but Agnetha stayed on for another year. I remember her as a very nice girl, talented and ambitious. A little shy, just like the rest of us in the band, Bernt says.
Agnetha was just 16 when she became the lead singer in Bernt Enghardts Orkester.
- We used to joke about how Agnetha only got the job because her predecessor also was called Agnetha, and it saved us the cost to print new posters, Bernt laughs.
All members of the band had normal jobs during the weeks. Agnetha was a switch board operator at the car firm Atteviks Bil, where she mostly was half asleep dreaming of her next gig.
- It was a tough, but very enjoyable time. On weekends and some week nights we played around at different Folkets Hus. When the dance was over we packed up and went back home. Very rarely we spent the night. We were all short of money and we had to get up the next morning to go to work.
But there were other reasons for Agnetha not spending the night. Agnetha's parents...
- I was terribly nervous when Agnetha went off on the tour bus. Sixteen is a dangerous age when it comes to boys and I was worried she was going to stay in a hotel with all of the boys, Agnetha's father Ingvar said in an interview a couple of years ago.
- Yes, we all knew that Agnetha's father was watching us, Bernt says.
Agnetha was still working with Bernt Enghardts when she had her breakthrough with "Jag Var Så Kär".
- I clearly remember when Agnetha came with this song to a rehearsal. It was the first song she wrote. After playing it through once we all said "that this will take you to Svensktoppen". Agnetha objected, but we were right.
As we all know...
Björn Ulvaeus, in his new capcity as spokesman for the Humanists of Sweden, will parttake in in a panel discussion about humanism, religion and politics, this morning at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, starting at 9.30. Other panelists are the following:
Moderator is Christer Sturmark, chairman of the Humanists.
This is one of my absolute top ten pictures of Agnetha. Still so young, recently married and a new mother, having had a strong career before Benny, Frida and Björn came into her life and changed t completely.a career. So enjoy this picture and how it was back then...
A lot of us probably remember when Julia Roberts got her first Oscar nomination for her part in the Hollywood movie »Steel Magnolias« from 1989. Originally it was a play, written by the debutant Robert Harling and performed on stage in New York for the first time in 1987. A Swedish version of the stage play will open at Vasateatern in Stockholm on 16 October 2008. One of the women is portrayed by no other than the Fältskog/Ulvaeus daughter, Linda Ulvaeus. The others are: Pernilla August, Suzanne Reuter, Gunilla Nyroos, Melinda Kinnaman, och Cecilia Nilsson.
Tickets available through www.ticnet.se
