Ask Ian

4 September 2001

ABBA never used any real pipe organs on their recordings, having Benny’s synthesizers to emulate all manner of keyboard sounds. Nor did the group record any hymns. However, Benny has been known to play church organs on occasion (one notable event was at Björn and Agnetha’s wedding in 1971). In 1999 Benny wrote and recorded a “millennium hymn” ‘Innan Gryningen’ which was sung by Emma Härdelin and was released as a single.

PLEASE, I need that information. Melissa, Cartagena, Colombia

Also ‘ABBA – The Book’ by Jean-Marie Potiez which has a day-by-day diary of what ABBA did over the years (not all of this information is accurate however)

For a full biography of ABBA, there’s only one recommendation – ‘Bright Lights, Dark Shadows: The Real Story Of ABBA’ by Carl Magnus Palm, which was released in Australia September 2001 with other countries to follow. All these books are available from the ABBF Record Service (click “Links” on the left) or indeed any online bookstore such as Amazon.

Thanks.... Melissa    (for Rachel)

 There’s still no confirmed news on whether Agnetha is indeed recording a new album or if/when it will be released. It has been almost 6 months since the last time the news “leaked” from her business manager. I recently heard a rumour saying that the album is set for a March 2002 release.

2/ On the cover of Tomas Ledin’s album ‘The Human Touch’ there is a blonde woman hiding behind him. Is it Agnetha? Hope you manage to answer. Best wishes, James.

2. I don’t know who the woman is on the cover of Tomas’s album, but it is not Agnetha.

Universal does have plans to release a new ABBA live album sometime in the future, possibly in conjunction with the planned DVD re-release of ‘ABBA – The Movie’. But at this early stage, there are no definite plans for any particular tracks to be included.

Perhaps his answer was in a similar vein to the usual “we might get back together one day” type answers that most ABBA members gave during the 80s. 

Or perhaps, given that both Agnetha and Frida were in “retirement” at the time, they got wind of this interview and lambasted Björn, saying that they would not be involved with any ABBA reunion. As early as 1985, Agnetha mentioned in interviews that the ABBA days were “behind” her and she would not go back.

2) In 1980 on BBC World Service I heard a program where ABBA were featured called "This is ABBA". The format was as follows: six 15-minute segments, and each segment was broadcast every week. All four of them were answering questions from a British journalist and they were in the studio, and their replies were interspersed with songs from their albums. It was definitely done after ‘Voulez Vous’, but questions covered the whole ABBA period, and they were talking about their hobbies, etc. I was stunned listening to Agnetha speaking quite a lot. I haven’t found this program ever mentioned in any book about the group. Unfortunately, I haven’t taped it. Maybe you know? Thanks, Yuri, Chicago, USA

Though these publications were “authorised” and “official”, they had little if any actual input from ABBA or Polar. The publishers were just publishers, not fans, and treated ABBA as they would any other publication.

Frida’s name was regularly misspelled by the media – anything from Anni-Frida to Anna-Frid to Freda. I guess that the different answers to the same question from Benny could have been because they were asked at different times.

2: I’ve not heard this radio series that you mention, though it sounds like it would have been fascinating. I wonder if one of our readers out there might have more information on it? There are probably a lot more interviews out there that have never been documented in any of the ABBA books.

Both “Björn” and “Andersson” are very common names in Sweden, so it stands to reason that there could feasibly be many Swedish men with that name. 

The myth about the “printing mistake” came from the ABBA Magazine – when asked this question, their answer was that the typesetter must have seen the name “B. Andersson” and changed it to “Björn Andersson”, supposedly confusing Björn and Benny’s names. Which just goes to prove how much contact with the ABBA organisation the magazine really had! 

As it was, B & B were way too busy on creating the music to be bothered with artwork and album packaging.

I have seen Björn Again once, and I didn’t like them.

There is no real added value to these “promotional copies” beyond their curiosity value. In some cases there were special labels printed that denote that a record was a promotional copy – mostly singles in my experience. These are slightly more valuable. 

Finally, there are sometimes special promotional pressings that have no commercially released equivalent. These usually have a special catalogue number, often with the letters “PRO”. One example is a compilation ABBA LP that was released by Atlantic in the USA in the very early 80s – it featured the ABBA albums released up to that time on the cover.

Also many groups have had success with compilations of their work at the BBC, did ABBA record enough TV/radio work at the BBC to warrant an album? If not any chance of a compilation video/album of their TV appearances around the world. Stuart Watson

“The ABBA cartoon was a project started by Reg Grundy Productions in 1976 (co-producers of ‘ABBA-The Movie’), but was later scrapped. Some of the footage was released to Channel 7 and was used to back ‘Happy Hawaii’. To the best of my knowledge this footage has since been junked by Grundy's, probably when they sold to Pearson Television. It is assumed this footage is held by Polar, but has yet to show up in a search of PolyGram's archive. The only definite remaining clips of this project are held by the BBC in their special ‘A for ABBA’ which was reused from an edition of ‘The Money Program’.”

Regarding your second question, ABBA only recorded a few songs for performance on Top Of The Pops – ‘Waterloo’, ‘Mamma Mia’ and ‘Fernando’. Hardly enough for a “BBC Sessions” album. There were plans in the pipeline for quite a long time to release a video compilation of ABBA’s TV performances, but at last reports this project had been killed off.

Second: ‘Here We’ll Stay’ was sung by Phil Collins and Frida but in ‘HWS’ video Frida was singing alone. There is no-Phil Collins voice! Why? Which version came into being first (this with Phil Collins’s voice or the second one)?’ Thanks, Tomek ‘Tom’ Wysocki from Poland

2: The version of ‘Here We’ll Stay’ featuring Phil Collins was recorded first and included on Frida’s ‘Something’s Going On’ album. When Polar wanted to release ‘Here We’ll Stay’ as a single, it was reported Phil Collins’ record companies apparently wanted an inordinately high percentage of the royalties from the single, so Polar decided to record Frida singing the song solo. Phil Collins himself later revealed that he stopped the duet being released as a single as didn’t want the single with his voice on it.

P.S. Will ANY country ever see the rest of the videos that weren’t put on ‘More Gold’ released commercially such as ‘Ring Ring’ and ‘Honey Honey’? Sincerely, Mark :-)

I believe that the new CD reissues of ABBA’s eight albums are to be released in the US, replacing the current catalogue, though I haven’t heard a release date. Speaking of US issues, your last lot of “remasters” are highly prized by fans around the world because their artwork more closely resembles the original LPs than any other CD issues. The 1997 remasters released in other countries were universally condemned for their shoddy artwork and badly written liner notes, so you were lucky not to get them in the US!

The only ABBA promotional clip (i.e. music video) that hasn’t been officially released on any video format is ‘Ring Ring’ (in its proper form – a redubbed version was included on the tape ‘Video Biography 1974 – 1982’. The original clip features the 1974 remix). 

A TV performance of ‘Honey, Honey’ has done the rounds and was included on the semi-official DVD from Taiwan ‘A Video Biography’, but there was never any official video for this song. Universal plans to release a DVD of all of ABBA’s videos, so hopefully ‘Ring Ring’ will be included.