Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad[a] KVO1kl (born 15 November 1945), also known simply as Frida, is a Swedish singer who is best known as one of the founding members and lead singers of the pop band ABBA. Courtesy titles Princess Reuss and Countess of Plauen are also in use because of her third marriage. Born in Bjrksen (Ballangen), Norway, to a Norwegian mother and a German father, she grew up in Torshlla, Sweden, and started her first solo career there, as a jazz singer in 1967, through a talent competition called New Faces.
She won the competition with her song "En ledig dag", leading to a television appearance on Hylands Hrna on Dagen H; as a result, she was signed by EMI, and in turn was signed by Stig Anderson's record label, Polar Music, after years of releasing several singles and an album, Frida, under the earlier record label. She then had moderate success in Sweden, as she was a contestant for Melodifestivalen 1969 with her song "Hrlig r vr jord". Lyngstad did not find international fame, however, until she joined ABBA, who have sold over 150 million albums and singles worldwide, making the group, which included her second husband Benny Andersson, one of the best-selling music acts in history.
In early 1947, Anni-Frid, her mother Synni, and her maternal grandmother, Arntine "Anni" Lyngstad, left their birthplace in Norway, fearing reprisals against those who had dealings with the Germans during the occupation.[2] Anni-Frid was taken by her grandmother to Sweden, where they settled in the region of Hrjedalen. Her grandmother took any available job while living there, whereas Synni remained in Norway and worked for a time in the south of the country. Synni joined her mother and daughter in Sweden, and the three moved to Malmkping (72 km from Stockholm). Synni died of kidney failure soon afterward, aged 21 years, leaving Anni-Frid to be raised solely by her grandmother.[1]
In June 1949, they both relocated to Torshlla, outside Eskilstuna, where Anni worked as a seamstress. Anni-Frid grew up in Torshlla and began to attend school in August 1952. During her childhood, Anni-Frid had close contact with her family, particularly her uncle and four aunts, at her birthplace during the summer holidays. She was close to her aunt, Olive, who once stated that she saw how lonely and subdued Anni-Frid was, and who consequently always did her best to make her feel loved and welcomed during her visits.[citation needed]
In 1977, the German teen magazine Bravo published a poster and a complete biography with details of Lyngstad's background, including the names of her mother and father. It was seen by Lyngstad's half-brother, Peter Haase, who went to his father and asked him if he had been in Ballangen during the war. A few months later, Lyngstad met Haase in Stockholm for the first time.[3]
Lyngstad stated in several interviews that her grandmother frequently sang songs to her (such as old Norwegian songs), which resulted in her love for music. She showed musical talent at a very early age from her earliest school years. On Fridays, she was often asked by her teacher to sing in front of the class and soon became known in school and in the neighbourhood for her beautiful voice. Although her grandmother encouraged her to sing (according to Lyngstad herself), she never attended any of her performances. Her grandmother died shortly before ABBA formed, so she never witnessed the success of the group.
At the age of 13, Lyngstad gained her first job as a dance band and schlager singer in 1958, with the Evald Ek's Orchestra. Evald Ek himself remembers: "It was hard to believe, such a young person could sing that well. She was so easy to rehearse with and she was never shy onstage. The only thing I taught her was to sing out. In those days, she had a tendency of holding back her voice a little." With the Evald Eks Orchestra, the 13-year-old Lyngstad, performed every weekend in front of a dancing audience. The sets often lasted up to five hours. The songs she liked most to sing were standards such as "All of Me", "Night and Day" and "Begin the Beguine".[4] To advance and develop, she also started to take singing lessons with opera tenor Folke Andersson. Later, she teamed up with the 15-piece Bengt Sandlunds Bigband, who performed a jazz repertoire covering Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington and Count Basie, her vocal idols being Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee. In 1963, she was the vocalist with the Gunnar Sandevarn Trio before forming her own band, the Anni-Frid Four. These groups all contained her husband, Ragnar Fredriksson.
This first exposure to a wider television audience caused a sensation, and many record companies and producers contacted Frida immediately. EMI executives, fearing they might lose their new singer, took the precaution of driving from Stockholm to Lyngstad's home in Eskilstuna the next morning with a recording contract for her to sign. EMI producer Olle Bergman remembers: "We got so interested and fond of her and I thought she had everything a person needs to become something."[5]
On 29 January 1968, she performed this song on Studio 8 on national television and on this occasion briefly met future ABBA member Agnetha Fltskog, who also performed her first single on the same SVT1 programme. Lyngstad toured Sweden with Lasse Lnndahl and Bengt Hallberg in 1968, and recorded several singles for EMI. At the same time, she decided to leave her family and move to Stockholm to start working full-time as a singer.
In 1969, she participated in Melodifestivalen, the Swedish heats for the Eurovision Song Contest, with the song "Hrlig r vr jord" ("Our Earth Is Wonderful"), and finished in fourth place. Backstage she met her future second husband and ABBA bandmate Benny Andersson.[7]
Frida continued to play in cabarets, and tour and regularly perform on TV and radio. Subsequently, her relationship with Andersson, and friendship with Bjrn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fltskog led to the formation of ABBA. In 1972, after five years with EMI Sweden, Lyngstad changed record companies and moved to the Polar Music label. She recorded the single "Man vill ju leva lite dessemellan" ("One wants to live a little from time to time"), which became her second No. 1 hit in the Swedish charts.
Possessing a wide mezzo-soprano vocal range, that covers C#3 to Eb6,[12] Lyngstad sang solo parts in the following ABBA songs: "Andante, Andante", "Bumblebee", "Cassandra", "Fernando", "Get on the Carousel", "Gonna Sing You My Lovesong", "I Am the City", "I Have a Dream", "I Let the Music Speak", "On Top of Old Smokey", "I Still Have Faith in You", "I Wonder (Departure)", "The King Has Lost His Crown", "Knowing Me, Knowing You", "Like an Angel Passing Through My Room", "Lovers (Live a Little Longer)", "Me and Bobby and Bobby's Brother", "Me and I", "Money, Money, Money", "The Name of the Game", "No Doubt About It", "One Man, One Woman", "Our Last Summer", "Put On Your White Sombrero", "Should I Laugh or Cry", "Super Trouper", "Tropical Loveland", "The Visitors", "The Way Old Friends Do" and "When All Is Said and Done".
Lyngstad clearly enjoyed the spotlight more than the other three members of ABBA. She liked to tour and to meet audience members one-to-one.[13] She took an active part in co-designing the famed ABBA costumes for their tours and TV performances.[14] After the members of ABBA went their separate ways, Lyngstad was the only one who openly regretted there had never been a reunion, until ABBA got back together in 2017.
Her next solo album, in Swedish, was Frida ensam ("Frida Alone"), released in 1975 during the ABBA years, and produced by Andersson. This album includes her successful Swedish version of "Fernando", which stayed at the No. 1 spot in the Svensktoppen radio charts for 9 weeks, but was never released as a single. The album was recorded between sessions of the ABBA albums Waterloo and ABBA. Because of the activities of the group, the album took 18 months to record. Frida ensam became an enormous commercial and critical success in Sweden, topping the Swedish album charts for six weeks and remaining in the charts for 38. The album was mostly a collection of covers of songs by artists such as the Beach Boys ("Skulle de' va' sknt"), 10cc ("Guld och grna ngar") and David Bowie ("Liv p Mars?"), receiving positive reviews from Melody Maker: "The album portrays Frida as a very strong and emotive singer and shows the true value of the music, that if sung properly and with enough feeling it transcends all language barriers". This album eventually went platinum.
In 1982, during ABBA's last year as a working band, Frida recorded and released her first post-ABBA solo album. This was also her first solo album in English. The Phil Collins-produced album called Something's Going On became a big success for Frida worldwide. A much rockier sound was found on many of the songs and Phil Collins' drum sound had a major contribution, particularly on the lead single, "I Know There's Something Going On", which topped the charts in Belgium and Switzerland, and was a top 5 hit in Australia, Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa and Sweden among others. With the song and video being heavily promoted and played on MTV, the single also proved successful in the United States, reaching No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 (and No. 9 on Radio & Records) in March 1983, and was the 20th biggest selling single in the US that year. In the UK, the track was not a successful hit, only reaching No. 43.
The album itself received good reviews, with Billboard writing: "ABBA's auburn-haired songstress makes a bold solo project a stunning success", while Mark Coleman described the album in the third edition of Rolling Stone Album Guide as "a sharp, rock-oriented, delightfully eclectic album". William Cooper had a similar opinion in AllMusic: "Frida escapes the creative limitations of being a member of one of the world's most popular groups on this solid and often riveting album". Swedish Television SVT documented this historical event by filming the whole recording process. The result became a one-hour TV documentary, including interviews with Frida and Phil, Bjrn and Benny, as well as all the musicians involved with the album. Owing to the success of the album (selling 1.5 million copies worldwide),[3] and its lead single, Frida was voted "Best Female Artist Of The Year" 1982, by the readers of Sweden's biggest evening paper Aftonbladet, receiving the Swedish Music Award Price Rockbjrnen.
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