Benny Andersson


Before ABBA

Goran Bror 'Benny' Andersson was born in Stockholm on 16th December 1946, and was given his first instrument at the age of 6. This started his love affair with music which continued during his formative years. Then in 1964 he joined the Hep Stars who became the Swedish equivalent of The Beatles, but at this time had yet to get off the starting blocks. Then in 1965 the successes started with 'A Tribute to Buddy Holly'.

It was also in 1965 when Benny started writing songs for the group which become huge sellers, and the Hep Stars sold thousands upon thousands of records. However this didn't stop them from losing most of their money due to a failed film project, failed production company, (called Hep House, cf. Apple Corps) and the Swedish Inland Revenue who landed the group with a tax demand of the Equivalent of $100,000. He then left the Hep Stars in 1969, and in the same year he met a certain Ann-Frid Lyngstad in a radio show.

After ABBA

In December 1982, Benny and Bjorn met up with Tim Rice to discuss writing a musical, and the following January there were definite proposals to do so, and this musical would appear in 1984 as Chess. The concept album was released in November 1984 where it immediately reached number 10 in the album charts, and it spawned two hit singles plus one failure. The two hit singles were I Knew Him So Well sung by Elaine Page and Barbara Dickson, and the other was One Night in Bangkok sung by Murray Head which reached #3 and the former got to Number One. In 1986 Chess opened in the West End of London where it received unanimous critical acclaim. However, over the Atlantic things weren't
quite so simple, as when Chess opened in Broadway it was a failure, mainly due to the fact that critics hated it (especially the New York Times).Despite this, Chess ran in the UK until 1990, where sine then it has been touring around the UK.

In October 1995 it was the grand opening of Benny and Bjorn's new musical 'Kristina från Duvemäla' which opened to critical success in Malmö.

April see’s the opening of the new musical by Benny and Bjorn aptly named Mamma Mia, at the Prince Edward Theatre in London. The musical is based around 27 ABBA songs. Click Here to go to the official Mamma Mia Site

TO BE CONTINUED...........