Ask Ian

21 October 2001
(updated 8 December 2001)

Can you tell me whether the enclosed attachment if a picture of Agnetha?? Or, is it of Anni-Frid (turned blonde?) All kind wishes to you from Jerry

2. Elaine Paige did indeed record two different demo versions of "descendants" of 'Just Like That' The first was titled 'Just Like That', though apparently the title wasn't actually sung in that version, which was almost the same as the later Gemini version. She also recorded another version titled 'When The Waves Roll Out To Sea' which had almost the same verse as ABBA's version of 'Just Like That' but a completely different chorus. For way too much information on the 'Just Like That' saga, visit abbamouse's little hole on the web at http://members.home.net/abbamouse/id1.html

I recently heard on the grapevine that the UK-based ABBA News Service (not actually a “fan club” as such) has ceased operations and so the annual ABBA day in Bristol has been cancelled.

At Christmas 1983 'ABBAcadabra' was performed on stage in London (in English), and two singles were released, the only ABBA participation being Frida's duet 'Time' (like 'Belle', based on 'Arrival') with B.A. Robertson. And what about 'Opus 10'? ;-)

As I understand it, the musical (as performed at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith, London) was only ever planned to run for the Christmas season in 1983. The French cast recording album was indeed released, and I've heard unconfirmed stories that a Portuguese version was also released. I believe the French recording was re-released on CD in the early 90s. I'm afraid I don't know who owns the rights to the musical. 

I'm not familiar with the 'Hey Mr Producer' CD you mention, but a quick perusal of the track list on amazon.com doesn't indicate to me that any songs from 'ABBAcadabra' are on that CD - certainly not any of the four songs released on singles. I've never seen a South American soap opera, but I heartily agree with your sentiments about 'Mamma Mia!' ;-)

You can find two songs of the Original ‘Abbacadabra’ 1984 London cast Recording in the 2 CDs album ‘Hey Mr. Producer’. The 2 songs are: ‘I Am The Seeker’ (track 8, disc 1) performed by B.A. Robertson and ‘Like An Image Passing By’ (track 10, disc 2) performed by Elaine Paige. In the booklet inside the CD you will read information about the show by Cameron Mackintosh himself!!! The album is still available through www.dresscircle.com, and Amazon (I suppose).
There was later a 3 hours TV special of the album but no songs of Abbacadabra were performed.
I hope you enjoy the news you have received.
P.S: Some songs of the album were recorded for that special CD because there was no Original cast recording (some of the shows were a flop!!!) but If u read the booklet u will know that the 2 ‘Abbacadabra’ songs are taken from the Original 1984 recording. So we know now for sure that there was a recording. The question is: When is the album going to be released?????? Can you make a little bit of pressure in Internet? Thanks!!!! David Vengador

Obviously you must have a different copy of the ‘Hey Mr Producer’ CD to that available now. I’ve checked several on-line stores, and the only ones that include the track listing don’t show those two songs from ‘Abbacadabra’ (check out http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000AE2Z/
qid=1004957591/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_3_2/107-8713542-8458956 and http://www.cdnow.com/cgi-bin/mserver/SID=22647173/
pagename=/RP/CDN/FIND/album.html/ArtistID=
HEY+MR+PRODUCER+%5C+TV+O.S.T./ITEMID=581360

There wasn’t a cast album of the English production of ‘Abbacadabra’ released, though there were two singles: ‘Time’ by Frida (yes, our Frida) and B.A. Robertson/’I Am The Seeker’ by B.A. solo, and ‘Like An Image Passing By’ by Elaine Paige/’When Dreamers Close Their Eyes’ by Finola Hughes. The singles were released in a number of countries, including the UK, Scandinavia and Australia.
 

2. Whenever the Swedish newspapers report on the activities of those ABBA members living in Sweden, they always end the article with a list of facts and figures which includes details of their personal worth, which I understand is information freely available from the Swedish tax office. I don't have this information at my fingertips, though probably a browse through previous ABBAMAIL Latest News pages will find it.

There are quite a few ABBA chat rooms in various forms. There are several on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) – for details on how to use IRC, go to http://www.mirc.com/. Many Yahoo! Groups mailing lists also host regular chats, and there are chat forums on many other ABBA websites. Check out the “links” section of ABBA World (www.abbaworld.net) > sites by category > fan contacts.

I was reading your Ask Ian column on ABBAMAIL and ran across the post asking info on ‘ABBA - The Video Biography / 1974 – 1982’ I would reply directly to the person asking the question, but their email isn't listed. Perhaps you can pass along the info or have them email me. It was released in NTSC format. I have it. I bought it as a Japanese import about 10 years ago. I don't know if anyone still sells it now. I think the name of the place I bought it through was called Laser Island Imports. But I can't be sure and I'm not sure if it's still in business. I'm not sure which produces it. Both Virgin Music Video and Pioneer LDC are on the cover box.

You might want to pass along to the person who originally asked about it that except for the ‘Dancing Queen’ performance... the Royal performance with the fancy dresses and the Eurovision performance, there is not a whole lot you can't get off of other videos. This particular video is has info scrolled across the screen which can be a little annoying. So the person might not want to kill themselves over searching for it. If she really needs to have this video, I can make her a copy. Just tell her to contact me at this email address privately. Thanks. Yours truly, James Bachmann JFB36400@aol.com
 

So, the theory says, a Spanish version may have been planned (or even written). I think there may have been a Spanish cover version at some time with this title (or something very similar). Pay a visit to The Ultimate Spanish ABBA Page http://www.geocities.com/Eureka/Plaza/2324/ for more on these two songs' theories.

UPDATE TO ANSWER:
You are completely wrong to suggest that other translations of ABBA hits were near direct translations. Whilst most on 'Gracias Por La Musica' were, 'Felicidad' tranlsates loosely as 'Celebrate', 'No Hay A Quien Culpar' as 'We are Not To Blame' and 'Se Me Esta Escapando' as 'Escaping Me'. The tiles on the ‘Gracias Por La Musica’ album were more straight forward and easier to translate. Stephen Curry, Londonderry.

My answer to that question referred only to the Spanish translations of the English song titles printed on the ‘Super Trouper’ LP (i.e. the songs were in English but the titles were in Spanish). This information came from The Ultimate Spanish ABBA Page http://www.geocities.com/Eureka/Plaza/2324/, which was the source of the theory about the possible Spanish recording of ‘The Winner Takes It All’. I don’t know Spanish at all, nor do I know just what the Spanish translations of the songs on ‘Super Trouper’ were – I was taking the information on that site at face value. Hope that clears up any confusion.

2. Josefin Nilsson is playing the role of Svetlana in the upcoming Swedish production of 'Chess', premiering in Stockholm in February 2002. There's no word at this stage on whether there will be a Swedish cast recording. 

3. As I understand it, the only reason that 1985's 'Gemini' album hasn't been re-released is because PolyGram "forgot" about it. I'm not aware if there are any plans to re-release it now.

I would just like to add some details about Frida's life in Fribourg. Fribourg is the name of a Swiss town (Fribourg in French, Freiburg in German) and also the name of the province (canton, as we say in Switzerland) for which it is the capital town. Just like some other Swiss provinces it is a bilingual canton/province, two third of its territory is French-speaking, the rest is German-speaking. 4 languages are official in Switzerland: German is the most common (it's actually a string of different German dialects that people speak), it is followed by French, Italian and Romanche. The lingustistic "border" between French and German follows more or less the Sarine river which surrounds Fribourg's old town (the river makes a kind of curl around the old town, which is quite beautiful with lots of historical buildings). Frida lived in the canton/province of Fribourg, but not in the town. Her house was quite isolated on a hill called Ruefsguet, which is located in the municipality of Rechthalten. This village is about 10 kilometers east from Fribourg, in a German-speaking district. The hill is outside the village, one or two kilometers further east when you drive from Fribourg. Misery, where the auction took place, is another small village in the same canton of Fribourg, it is also located in the countryside, but not in the same area: it is 9 km. west of the town. In contrast to Rechthalten, Misery is a French-speaking place. Frida's late husband Ruzzo Reuss had his architect office in the center of the town of Fribourg, rue de Morat (this is the name of the street). Marc

AND

I live not far away where Frida lived in Switzerland. I just want to say you that Frida didn't lived in Freiburg. She lived in the small village "Rechthalten". In a farm in the middle of the fields and Swiss cows. This village isn't far away from Freiburg. 15 minutes by car. Freiburg is a small city in the border of the French and German part of Switzerland. Ruzzo work at Freiburg. In French you say "Fribourg". Misery is a small village in the French part. But Frida never lived in Misery. Bye bye Monique

Thanks for the further information, Marc and Monique. No one knows their own region better than a local ;-)
 

AND

Why did Benny and Bjorn request that 'You Owe Me One' not be included on any of the remasters? I've always liked the song, though I can see that compared to the rest of 'The Visitors' and its bonus tracks it sounds a bit "fluffy". I scanned the website for a reason but couldn't see one. Can you help? Geoff Carpenter

AND

Hi I'm From México and I have a question about the new remasters. Why 'You Owe Me One' is not on any of the new CDs? Why did Björn and Benny refuse to release that song on CD? I love that song! Diego Toscano, México

I don't really think it's anything to do with it sounding "out of place" with the more sombre songs on the rest of the CD. It's a pity that it wasn't included for the sake of completeness (all the other B-sides were on the 2001 reissues) - I love the song too, and it's one of the few "fun" ABBA songs of the last couple of years. I don't believe that 'I Am The City' was ever slated for inclusion, despite the immanent deletion of 'More ABBA GOLD'.

I don't know about any of the 'Chess' songs you mentioned being rehashed for songs by Gemini or Josefin Nilsson, as I'm not particularly familiar with their albums. Something that you forgot to mention in your extremely detailed question is that the several songs on Benny's albums 'Klinga mina klockor' and 'November 1989' were later used in 'Kristina från Duvemåla', which itself has many pieces of music repeated. However, reusing already released songs is also an entirely different kettle of fish to reusing tunes from unreleased/unfinished recordings. 

As for 'I'm Still Alive', there are conflicting stories that it was not actually recorded when ABBA's concerts at Wembley Arena in London were filmed in 1979. So a "releasable" version may not even exist. I don't know why ABBA never attempted to record it in the studio though. I have no idea why 'Agadir till Bergshagen' never saw the light of day - obviously the Bs weren't happy with it. Or perhaps during later songwriting sessions they'd forgotten about it.

2. Benny has indeed released a new CD, 'Benny Anderssons Orkestra'. It's available from the ABBF Record Service http://www1.tip.nl/~t097528/  or Sweden-based on-line stores such as Skivhugget - http://www.skivhugget.se/

3. This question about 'The Movie' has already been answered several times (including once in this very column). There are plans for "bonus features" but at this stage I don't know what they are. A DVD of all of ABBA's promo clips (music videos) is planned, possibly for release before the end of this year. 

4. It's hard to get "good quality" recordings of those songs. Most of them have appeared in various conditions on a plethora of bootlegs. The full version of 'Get On The Carousel' is on the bootleg 'One More Toast' available from ABBAMAIL (click the Merchandise link on the left). 'I Am An A' and 'I'm Still Alive' were both on ABBAMAIL's 'Live At Last', which has sold out. A full recording of 'Just A Notion' has never surfaced that I'm aware of, though a couple of extended versions (i.e. the excerpt in 'ABBA Undeleted' repeated) are floating around. There is no such ABBA song as 'Sommar Sommar'. 

5. I thought that 'The Winner Takes It All' video was available in the US, but perhaps not. It's definitely been released in Canada. The Canadian based HMV site http://www.hmv.com/  lists it as currently available. It's recently been released on DVD in the UK (Region 2), but I've not heard of any plans to release it anywhere else in that format as yet.