Anni-Frid Lyngstad – Norway’s gift to Sweden – was born in Narvik, a town just outside the Arctic Circle in Norway, in 1945. She was born out of wedlock, her father, a German soldier named Alfred Haase, having returned to Germany at the end of the Second World War unaware that his love affair with a young Norwegian girl was to produce one of the biggest pop icons of the 70s.
Later in 1977, when Anni-Frid was at the height of her success with ABBA, an article about ABBA appeared in the German pop magazine Bravo listing the biographical details of each member. It happened to catch the eye of one Andrea Buchinger. She noticed that her uncle had exactly the same name as the supposedly disappeared father of Frida. When asked if he had known a girl called Synni Lyngstad while he was in Norway in 1945, Alfred Haase admitted that this was so.Anni-Frid’s mother Synni was shunned by the people of Narvik who strongly disapproved of a Norwegian girl producing a child by an enemy soldier.
Anni-Frid's grandmother decided to take the child with her and move to Sweden. The two of them ended up in Torshälla, just outside of Eskilstuna. Synni soon joined them, but weary of life, died less than 2 years after Frida was born.Anni-Frid made her stage debut at a Red Cross charity event in 1957. Two years later, she started working with the Ewald Eks kvintett dance orchestra.In 1961 while singing in Bengt Sandlund's big band she met Ragnar Fredrikssonwho would become her first husband. Together they would have two children; Hansand Lise-Lotte. In 1964 Frida and Ragnar formed their own group, Anni-Frid Four.On Sunday, September 3, 1967 Sweden went from driving on the left side of the road to the right. It was also the day on which the finals of the talent competition Nya Ansikten (New Faces) took place. The organisers had agreed with Swedish Television that the winner would appear live on television that same night on the special live show celebrating Sweden's major traffic change. The winner was 21 year old Anni-Frid with a song called En ledig dag.Anni-Frid had been on stage singing with various dancehall bands since she was 13 but it was not until this breakthrough with all the excitement and media attention around her TV debut that she landed herself a record contract. She signed with EMI records and released En ledig dag/Peter, kom tillbaka as her first single.None of her singles during the first three years with EMI were successful although press reviews and airplay were good. She continued to be popular as a stage artist, however, and toured the Folkparks with famous Swedish singer Lasse Lönndahl in 1968.
In the summer of 1968, and throughout 1969 and 1970 she worked with Swedish singer/pianist Charlie Norman in cabaret shows and toured the Folkparks.In March 1969 she entered Melodifestivalen (the Swedish selections for the Eurovision Song Contest) with Härlig är vår jord. She only came fourth but Härlig är vår jord would become her first record to hit the top 10 of the Svensktoppen chart.It was in the spring of 1969, when she was working with Norman in Malmö that Anni-Frid met Benny Andersson for the first time. Not long after this first meeting they became a couple, and from the recording of her seventh single Peter Pan in September 1969, Benny Andersson produced the remainder of her recordings for EMI.Peter Pan is particularly interesting, since the song was written by Benny together with Björn Ulvaeus, and therefore it was the first record to bring together the talents of three future ABBA members. The single wasn't a commercial success though.In May 1970, Frida made her second appearance in the Svensktoppen chart, spending two weeks and reaching Number Eight with Där du går lämnar kärleken spår, her eighth single.Although the big hits continued to elude her, EMI still wanted her to record a debut album, so the Lyngstad-Andersson team started working on it. The album Frida was released in the spring of 1971.
The first single released from the project, En liten sång om kärlek, didn't become a hit.At the same time as sessions for the album started, Anni-Frid and Benny teamed up with another engaged couple, Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog and started working on their very first project together; the cabaret show called Festfolket, which opened in Gothenburg on 1 November 1970. The premiere of the show was preceded by their very first performance together on the Swedish Radio show Våra favoriter on October 3, 1970.Although it toured Sweden until February 1971, Festfolket was not a very successful venture. The plans for a permanent group were shelved and while Agnetha, Björn and Benny toured together in the summer of 1971, Anni-Frid went on the road with popular Swedish singer Lars Berghagen with whom she also recorded a duet single, En kväll om sommarn/Vi vet allt, men nästan inget.The two couples may have temporarily abandoned their plans to continue as a permanent foursome but kept in touch over the coming year.
The first time that they all appeared together on a recording was when the girls did back-up vocals for Björn & Benny's Hej gamle man. In the autumn of 1971 Anni-Frid landed her first Svensktoppen Number One with Min egen stad, the Swedish version of Benny's It's Nice To Be Back which he had written for his group the Hep Stars. Björn, Benny and Agnetha provided background vocals and Benny played the keyboards. Encouraged by the success of the song, EMI addedMin egen stad to the Frida album.In October 1971, Frida went on stage in the variety show Mina favoriter which continued to take up most of her time during the spring of 1972. The collaboration between Björn, Benny, Agnetha and Anni-Frid became more active and in January 1972 Anni-Frid recorded her last single for EMI; Vi är alla barn i början/Kom och sjung en sång. Soon, Anni-Frid as a recording artist would start calling herself Frida.
The next time she released a solo single it was on the Polar label; Man vill ju leva lite dessemellan which reached Number One on Svensktoppen in the autumn of 1972.Before that, however, the first ABBA single, People Need Love, had been recorded and released. As the ABBA phenomenon exploded onto the world in 1974 and 1975, Frida recorded her last Swedish-language solo album. Frida ensam was produced by Benny, and was released in November 1975. It was a huge success selling well over 130,000 copies.
With ABBA Frida would go on to become part of pop history in a career that spanned from 1972 to 1982. She would sing the lead on pop classics like Fernando, Money, money, money, Knowing me, knowing you, Super Trouper and I have a dreamThe success story of ABBA is well documented elsewhere and need not be further explored within the limits of these pages.Benny's and Frida's marriage in October 1978 was followed by divorce in early 1981.
In February 1982 Frida started recording her first English language solo albumSomething's going on, produced by Phil Collins. The album went on to sell close to 1 million copies worldwide.In 1983 she participated in the musical project Abbacadabra - a fantasy musical featuring ABBA songs set to new lyrics - and recorded French and English language versions of ABBA's Arrival under the titles Belle (a duet with Daniel Balavoine) andTime (a duet with B.A. Robertson).
Her next solo album Shine recorded in 1984 and produced by Steve Lillywhitewasn't a success. It was to be her last album for twelve years. In 1987, she guested on the hit single Så länge vi har varann by the Swedish group Ratata, but except for her contribution to the all-star female choir on the title track of Benny's Klinga mina klockor album the same year, her voice was not to grace any recordings for the next five years.
Over the next years, Frida - a grandmother now - would become a staunch ecological campaigner devoting most of her public activities to her commitment to environment issues, and especially the Swedish organisation Det naturliga steget (The Natural Step) and its offshoot Artister för miljö (Artists For The Environment). It was as part of this latter group that she returned to the recording studio in 1992 and recorded a version of Swedish composer Evert Taube's classic Änglamark. For the B-side of this single release, she recorded a solo version of Julian Lennon's Saltwater.
In 1992 Frida married German Prince Ruzzo Reuss von Plauen in Denmark. The couple lived with Ruzzo's twin daughters Henriette and Pauline from his first marriage to a Norwegian ship-owner's daughter at Ruzzo's castle in Switzerland.She performed a version of ABBA's Dancing Queen with the Swedish vocal groupThe Real Group at Sweden's Queen Silvia's 50th birthday gala in December 1993. The arrangement of the song was released on a 1994 Real Group album.In 1996 Frida finally stepped back into the recording studio to record the Swedish language album Djupa andetag. The album was a major hit reaching Number One in the Swedish charts, and sold more than 100,000 copies. Singles included Även en blomma, Ögonen, and Alla mina bästa år, a duet with Marie Fredriksson of Roxette.
In November 1999 Frida's husband Ruzzo died of cancer aged 49 with 53-year-old Frida at his side. It wasn't the first time that Frida's life had been touched by tragedy. Two years earlier her daughter Lise-Lotte was killed in a traffic accident in the US aged 30. Frida was reported to be too busy nursing Ruzzo for the opening night of the ABBAmusical Mamma Mia! when it opened in April 1999 at London's Prince Edward Theatre.
