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List Price: $27.50 | | Publisher: Aurum Press
Salesrank: 971390
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| Our Price: $91.96 |
| Used Price: $39.77 |
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| Media: Paperback |
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Editorial Review:
Worldwide, ABBA is the second biggest–selling band of all time, surpassed only by The Beatles. Now, ABBA: The Book presents the incredible story of four Swedish folk singers who went on to become one of the most influential pop groups of all time. Spanning their entire career, and featuring 250 color photos, this is the definitive book for all fans.
ABBA: The Book Reviews:
ABBA: The Book 
2008-02-23 - Jean-Marie Potiez is, of course, from France. I knew him through ABBA fan clubs some years ago. He gives a good account of the ABBA phenomenon. Agnetha was born in Jonkoping, Sweden on April 5, 1950. Her father staged amateur reviews in the town, and Agnetha began singing in them at an early age. When she was 15, she left school to take a job as a telephone operator with a car firm. She was singing with a group called Bernt Enghardts. She left them when her composition, "Jag Var Sa Kar (I Was So In Love)" became a hit on the Swedish charts. Agnetha moved to Stockholm and recorded her first album.
Agnetha composed music. She did nine solo albums between 1968 and 1988. She recorded in Swedish, German, English, French and Spanish. Her label in the early days was Cupol. She went on to form Agnetha Faltskog Productions with Staffan Linde as her manager.
Benny Andersson is the only one of the four born in Stockholm, Benny came from a family of accordion players. It was natural for him to teach himself piano. From 1964 to 1969, his Hep Stars were Sweden's biggest group. They had a rougher image than Bjorn's Hootenanny Singers. When their career ended in bankruptcy, Benny came away with the idea that there would have to be greater economy in the future. It gave him incentive to become co-owner of Polar Music with Bjorn and Stig Anderson.
Bjorn Ulvaeus came from Gothenburg, Sweden's western port and second largest city, where he was born in 1945.
Bjorn was still in school when he formed the West Bay Singers, a folk group. Stig Anderson suggested the name, Hootenanny Singers. Stig was great at naming groups.
Bjorn is known for his business sense and studied corporate law for a term at the University of Stockholm. He meant to be a civil engineer. He was drafted into the Swedish military for the mandatory 10 months, a handy experience if you are going to write songs like Fernando.
Frida Lyngstad was raised by her grandmother in Eskilstuna. Her mother had died at age 21, and it was felt that little Frida would fare better in Sweden since her father had been part of the occupying army.
Frida started singing professionally when she was 13. She sang with a big band, and that is how she met her first husband, Ragnar Fredriksson. He played trombone. Frida had two children by him: a son, Hans, and a daughter, Lotta.
ABBA: The Book 
2007-06-10 - If you are an ABBA fan, then you will love this book. The book takes you into the lives for 4 very special musicans.
ABBA the Book
2005-06-06 - Probably the best book you can get, if you want an ABBA photo book. In this case even better than "From ABBA To Mammma Mia", since there is pictures from a broader period . It is written in cronologic date-by-date, where each year, as well as "The Movie" and the concert tours got its own chapter. You don't have to be an ABBA fan to enjoy this book, everyone can enjoy this trip in text and pictures through the fantastic story of ABBA.
A celebratory tribute
2003-12-26 - Abba remain hugely popular in Britain and many other countries more than twenty years after they disbanded. This book is not an in-depth study of the different personalities and their difficulties, but it gives plenty of information about the members of Abba and their manager, including their lives before and after Abba. And (at least in my hardcover edition) there are pictures - plenty of them.
Regarding the four members of Abba, three of them (Benny, Bjorn and Agnetha) were born and raised in Sweden, all apparently having fairly normal childhoods, only their musical talent setting them apart from others. All three became hugely successful in the Swedish pop charts, Agnetha as a solo singer, Benny and Bjorn as members of separate groups.
The odd one out was Anni-Frid, better known as Frida. She was born in Norway as the illegitimate child of a German father and Norwegian mother. Frida was mainly raised by her grandmother, who took her to Sweden, where her mother joined them but died of illness a few months later, aged just 21. Frida also found it much harder than the others to achieve success in music, but she did eventually have some big Swedish hits of her own.
The author presents the main years (1969 to 1982) on a year-by-year basis, explaining the different events that occurred in each year - records, tours, TV, their personal lives - in a semi-diary format.
As far as the music is concerned, the story is quite complicated and not always easy to follow, but that is no fault of the author. Before they became Abba, they were four separate acts, each with their own careers and signed to different record companies. Once they came together as Abba, different things were happening in Japan, Australia, Germany, Sweden and elsewhere with different records - even before 1974. That was the year that Abba won Eurovision and charted for the first time in Britain and America.
There have been many books on Abba and will surely be many more. Despite being a huge Abba fan, this is the first I've read. If you're only going to have one book on Abba, it might as well be this one.
THEY CAME, THEY SANG...AND THEY CONQUERED!
2001-12-18 - Did you ever come across a favourite song and say, "I wonder whatever happened to....? Abba took the world by storm back in the 60's when a quarter bought you an afternoon matinee at the movies, and minimum wage in my home town was $1.00 per hour. If you earned $1.25 or more, you had it made!
Abba possessed a unique blend of charisma, talent, and originality. Who can forget the sentimental lyrics of ,"I Had A Dream", the gentle flow of "The Rivers of Babylon", the melancholy strains of "Fernando" or the upbeat dance-hit, "Dancing Queen"? The list of hits went on and on.
What I particularly liked about this book was the numerous photographs all depicting Abba at their finest. Many photographs are ones not often, if ever, published before, at least not on this continent. In addition, the book reveals a lot of factual, personal information about the individuals themselves. The road to fame and fortune is not an easy one as readers will discover through the pages of this book. Some facts have been printed before, but other aspects of their career are presented here in a more complete, in-depth light. Fans of Abba, will no longer need to wonder, "what ever happened to..." because the epilogue tells you just that. Of all the books on the group, this is one of the best in print.
