Göran Bror Benny Andersson was born 16 December 1946 in theVasastan district of Stockholm to civil engineer Gösta Andersson (1912–1973) and his wife Laila (1920–1971). His sister Eva-Lis Andersson followed in 1948. Andersson's musical interest was spurred by his father and grandfather (Efraim), who played theaccordion. At the age of six, they bought him one, too, and introduced him to Swedishfolk music,traditional music, andschlager. The first records he owned were "Du Bist Musik" by Italian schlager singerCaterina Valente andElvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock".[1] He was especially impressed by the flip side, "Treat Me Nice", as this featured a piano. This variety of different kinds of music influenced him through the years.
At ten, Andersson got his own piano and taught himself to play. He was influenced byElmore James andBrian Jones, left school at 15 and began to perform at youth clubs. This is when he met his first girlfriend Christina Grönvall, with whom he had two children: Peter (born 1963) and Heléne (born 1965). In early 1964, Benny and Christina joined "Elverkets Spelmanslag" ("The Electricity Board Folk Music Group"); the name was a punning reference to their electric instruments. Their repertoire consisted mainly of instrumentals, including "Baby Elephant Walk";[2] he also wrote his first songs.
Andersson (second from left) withthe Hep Stars in 1965
In October 1964 he joined theHep Stars as keyboardist and they made a breakthrough in March 1965 with their hit "Cadillac", eventually becoming the most celebrated of the Swedish 1960s pop bands. Andersson secured his place as the band's keyboardist and musical driving force as well as a teen idol. The band performed mostly covers of international hits, but Andersson soon started writing his own material, and gave the band the classic hits "No Response", "Sunny Girl", "Wedding", "Consolation", "It's Nice To Be Back" and "She Will Love You", among others.
Andersson metBjörn Ulvaeus in June 1966, and the two men started writing songs together, their first being "Isn't It Easy To Say", eventually recorded by the Hep Stars. He also had a fruitful songwriting collaboration withLasse Berghagen, with whom he wrote several songs and submitted "Hej, Clown" for the 1969Melodifestivalen – the SwedishEurovision Song Festival finals. The song finished in second place. During this contest, he met vocalistAnni-Frid Lyngstad, and they soon became a couple. Around the same time, his songwriting companion Ulvaeus met vocalistAgnetha Fältskog.
The personal relationships and Andersson and Ulvaeus' songwriting collaboration led quite naturally to the very close cooperation which the four friends had during the following years. Benny and Björn scored their first hits as songwriters in the spring of 1969: "Ljuva sextital" (a hit with Brita Borg) and "Speleman" (a hit for the Hep Stars). As the two couples began supporting each other during recording sessions, the sound of the women's voices convinced the songwriters to model their 'group' on variousMOR acts such asBlue Mink,Middle of the Road andSweet.
The group's breakthrough came with winning theEurovision Song Contest for Sweden with "Waterloo" on 6 April 1974. During the next eight years, Andersson (together with Ulvaeus) wrote music for and produced eight studio albums with ABBA. The group achieved great success globally and scored a chain of No. 1 hits.
With ABBA, Benny sang lead vocal on only one song – "Suzy-Hang-Around", from theWaterloo album.[3]
After ABBA:Chess,Kristina andMamma Mia! (1983–present)
Chess was staged in London's West EndPrince Edward Theatre in May 1986 and received mixed to positive reviews, running for about three years. A revised staging on Broadway in April 1988 received poor reviews, running for two months.
In 1985, Andersson produced and released an album with brother and sisterAnders andKarin Glenmark, featuring new songs by Andersson/Ulvaeus. The duo named themselvesGemini, and a second album with more music by Björn and Benny was released in April 1987, containing the big hit "Mio My Mio"; also to be found on the soundtrack to the filmMio in the Land of Faraway, for which Andersson co-produced the music.
In 1987, Andersson released his first solo albumKlinga Mina Klockor ("Chime, My Bells"). All the music was written by and performed by himself on accordion, backed by theOrsa Spelmän (Orsa Folk Musicians) on fiddles. A second solo album followed:November 1989.
In 1990, Andersson scored a Swedish No. 1 hit with "Lassie", sung by female cabaret groupAinbusk, for whom he also wrote theSvensktoppen hits "Älska Mig" and "Drömmarnas Golv". He decided to produce an album withJosefin Nilsson from this quartet, resulting in the 1993 English-language albumShapes, featuring ten new Andersson/Ulvaeus compositions.
In 1992, he wrote the introduction melody for the European football championship, which was organised by Sweden that year.
From the late 1980s, Andersson had worked on an idea for an epic Swedish language musical based on his affection for traditional folk music, and in October 1995,Kristina från Duvemåla premiered in Sweden. The musical was based onThe Emigrants novels by Swedish writerVilhelm Moberg. The musical ran successfully for almost five years, before closing in June 1999. An English-language version, simply titledKristina, was staged in concert atCarnegie Hall in New York City for two nights in September 2009, yielding a live recording, and at theRoyal Albert Hall for one night in April 2010.
Andersson's next project wasMamma Mia!, a musical built around 24 of ABBA's songs, which has become a worldwide box-office blockbuster, with versions in several languages being played in many countries, including the UK (West End premiere in April 1999), Canada (Toronto premiere in 2000), the USA (Broadway premiere in 2001), and Sweden (Swedish language premiere in 2005).
For the 2004 semi-final of theEurovision Song Contest, staged in Istanbul thirty years afterABBA had won the contest in Brighton, Benny appeared briefly in a special comedy video made for the interval act, entitled "Our Last Video". Each of the four members of the group appeared briefly in cameo roles, as did others such asCher andRik Mayall. The video was not included in the official DVD release of the Eurovision Contest, but was issued as a separate DVD release. It was billed as the first time the four had worked together since the group split; however, Frida's appearance was filmed separately.
A film version ofMamma Mia! premiered on 18 July 2008. In April/May 2007, Andersson worked on the film soundtrack, re-recording the ABBA songs with musicians from the original ABBA recording sessions.Mamma Mia! The Movie has become the most successful film musical of all time, and the biggest-selling DVD ever in the UK.
Andersson currently performs with his own band of 16 musicians,Benny Anderssons Orkester ("Benny Andersson's orchestra", BAO), with fellow SwedesHelen Sjöholm (ofKristina from Duvemåla) andTommy Körberg (ofChess), with lyrics to new material sometimes written byBjörn Ulvaeus. BAO has released five albums to huge success in Sweden, all containing hit singles.
In 2009 BAO achieved a new record in Sweden on theSvensktoppen chart by staying there for 243 weeks with the song "Du är min man" ("You Are My Man"), sung by Sjöholm.[4]
Andersson composes primarily for his band BAO, with vocalists Sjöholm and Körberg, but he keeps his older material alive by re-visiting it, as inMamma Mia! and the Swedish version ofChess.
For a compilation album of the Glenmark duoGemini, Andersson had Björn Ulvaeus write new Swedish lyrics for the re-recording of two songs from 1984 and 1987.
Andersson and Ulvaeus have continuously been writing new material; most recently the two wrote seven songs for Andersson's BAO 2011 albumO klang och jubeltid, performed as usual by vocalists Sjöholm, Körberg andKalle Moraeus. In July 2009, BAO, now named "The Benny Andersson Band", released their first international record, the albumThe Story of a Heart. It was a compilation of 14 tracks from Andersson's five Swedish-language releases between 1987 and 2007, including five songs now recorded with lyrics by Ulvaeus in English, and the new title song premiered on BBC2'sKen Bruce Show. A Swedish-language version of the title track,"Sommaren Du Fick" ("The Summer You Got"), was released as a single in Sweden prior to the English version, with vocals by Helen Sjöholm.
In the spring of 2009, Andersson also released a single recorded by the staff at his privately owned Stockholm hotel Hotel Rival, titled "2nd Best to None", accompanied by a video showing the staff at work. In 2008, Andersson and Ulvaeus wrote a song for Swedish singerSissela Kyle, titled "Jag vill bli gammal" ("I Wanna Grow Old"), for her Stockholm stage show "Your Days Are Numbered", which was never recorded and released but did get a TV performance. Ulvaeus also contributed lyrics to ABBA's 1976 instrumental track "Arrival" forSarah Brightman's cover version recorded for her 2008 albumA Winter Symphony. New English lyrics have also been written for Andersson's 1999 song "Innan Gryningen" (then also named "Millennium Hymn"), with the new title "The Silence of the Dawn" forBarbara Dickson was performed live, but not yet recorded and released. In 2007, they wrote the new song "Han som har vunnit allt" ("He Who's Won It All") for actor and singerAnders Ekborg.
Ulvaeus wrote English lyrics for two older songs from Andersson's solo albumsI Walk with You Mama ("Stockholm by Night", 1989) andAfter the Rain ("Efter regnet", 1987) for opera singerAnne Sofie Von Otter, for her Andersson tribute albumI Let the Music Speak. Barbara Dickson recorded an Ulvaeus and Andersson song called "The Day The Wall Came Tumbling Down"; the song eventually was released by AustralianMamma Mia! musical star Anne Wood's album of ABBA covers,Divine Discontent. As of October 2012, Ulvaeus had mentioned writing new material with Andersson for a BAO Christmas release (also mentioned as a BAO box), and Andersson is busy writing music for a Swedish language obscure musical,Hjälp Sökes ("Help is Wanted") together with Kristina Lugn and Lars Rudolfsson, premiering 8 February 2013.
Andersson has also written music for a documentary film aboutOlof Palme, re-recording the track "Sorgmarch" from his last album as a theme throughout the film.The song "Saknadens rum and Kärlekens Tid", recorded 2004 by Helen Sjöholm with BAO, has also been performed in concert in English (lyrics by Ylva Eggehorn) by operabaritoneBryn Terfel.On 15 April 2013, it was officially announced by theEBU and theSVT that Andersson, along with Ulvaeus and the late Stockholm based DJ and record producerAvicii, had composed the anthem for the2013 Eurovision Song Contest. The song was performed for the first time in the Final on 18 May.[5]
A new album of Andersson compositions presented in a choral style was released on 18 September 2015. "Kärlekens Tid" was produced in Andersson's Mono Music studio, under the direction of choirmaster Gustaf Sjökvist, who died before the album's release. Gustaf Sjökvists Choir, conducted by Cecilia Rydinger Alin, performed two concerts at Skeppsholmen on 20 September, featuring Benny Andersson on piano. The album includes songs in Swedish and English from a range of Andersson's projects, such asChess,Kristina and BAO.
In November 2018,Deutsche Grammophon releasedPiano, a collection of ABBA tunes, tunes fromChess and original compositions all played by Andersson on solo piano.
Andersson reunited with ABBA in 2018. On 2 September 2021, via YouTube livestream, ABBA announced their upcoming virtualconcert residency "ABBA Voyage", as well as the imminent release of an eponymous album, recorded between 2017 and 2021. The new record, their first studio album in 40 years, features ten tracks, including "I Still Have Faith In You" and "Don't Shut Me Down", which also were first shown in the aforementioned livestream event and released as a double A-side single. On 5 November 2021, theVoyage album was released worldwide. On 27 May 2022, ABBA Voyage opened in a purpose-built venue named the ABBA Arena at theQueen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London.
Andersson has written music to several films for screen and television; the first attempt in the early 1970s for the Swedish erotica movieThe Seduction of Inga; the film was not a success, but the 'Björn & Benny' single "She's My Kind of Girl" surprised the composers by being released in Japan and becoming a Top 10 hit (the song renamed in Japan as "The Little Girl of the Cold Wind").
In 2000, he wrote the music for fellow Swede (no relation)Roy Andersson's filmSongs from the Second Floor (the music later re-recorded, featuring new lyrics, with BAO! with vocals by Helen Sjöholm). He also wrote the theme for Roy Andersson's next film,You, the Living, from 2007.
Andersson worked on the film adaptation ofMamma Mia!. He also wrote the film score for the 2012 documentaryPalme about Swedish prime ministerOlof Palme.[6] He later won aGuldbagge Award for Best Original Score, for that film at the48th Guldbagge Awards.[7]
Together with Ulvaeus, Andersson was nominated for aDrama Desk Award in a category "Outstanding Music" (for the musicalChess), and for aTony Award in a category "Best Orchestrations" (for musicalMamma Mia!). Original cast recordings of both musicals were nominated for aGrammy Award. Andersson/Ulvaeus also won aTouring Broadway Award for the musical "Mamma Mia" (best score).
During his post-ABBA career Andersson won four SwedishGrammis awards, and together with Ulvaeus received the "Special International"Ivor Novello award from 'The British Academy of Composers and Songwriters', twice "The Music Export Prize" from the Swedish Ministry of Industry and Trade (2008),[9] as well as the "Lifetime Achievement" award from the Swedish Music Publishers Association (SMFF). In 2002, Andersson was given an honorary professorship by the Swedish Government for his "ability to create high-class music reaching people around the world".
In 2007, he was elected a member ofRoyal Swedish Academy of Music, and in 2008 received an Honorary Doctorate from theStockholm University Faculty of Humanities for contributing importantly both to the preservation and the growth of the Swedish folk music tradition.
On 15 March 2010, Andersson appeared on stage in New York with former wife Anni-Frid Lyngstad to accept ABBA's award of induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. During his acceptance speech he reflected on the important influence of traditional European music and the melancholy of the Swedish soul on ABBA's brand of pop music. "If you live in a country like Sweden, with five, six months of snow, and the sun disappears totally for like two months, that would be reflected in the work of artists," he said. "It's definitely in the Swedish folk music, you can hear it in the Russian folk songs, you can hear in the music from Jean Sibelius or Edvard Grieg from Norway, you can see it in the eyes of Greta Garbo and you can hear it in the voice of Jussi Björling. And you can hear in the sound of Frida and Agnetha on some of our songs too."
In 2012, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from theLuleå Tekniska Universitet Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.[10]
Andersson won the Swedish "Guldbaggen" award in 2012 as composer of the music for the film "Palme".[11]
For his albumPiano he received theOpus Klassik award in 2018.[12]
On 21 March 2024, shortly before the 50th anniversary of their win at the Eurovision Song Contest, all four members of ABBA were appointedCommander, First Class, of theRoyal Order of Vasa by His Majesty KingCarl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. This was the first time in almost 50 years that the Swedish Royal Orders of Knighthood was bestowed on Swedes. ABBA shared the honour with nine other persons.[13]
Andersson was engaged to Christina Grönvall. They have two children. The couple split in 1966 and Christina kept custody of the children as Andersson was then at the peak of his Hep Stars' success. In the 1990s, their son Peter Grönvall formedOne More Time, a group that enjoyed European success with the ABBA-like "Highland" and, later, as Sweden's entry to theEurovision Song Contest 1996.[14]
Andersson was in a relationship withAnni-Frid Lyngstad of ABBA for about 11 years, from 1969 till 1980. They married on 6 October 1978, but separated on 26 November 1980 and divorced in 1981.[15][16]
He married Swedish TV presenter Mona Nörklit in 1981 and had a son, Ludvig. Ludvig is also one of the producers of the concert residencyABBA Voyage.[17] Ludvig and his father are co-owners of the studio IKSMIXNINGSVERKET, or RMV Studios, also called the National Institutional Department of Mixing. Located in a 150-year-old naval warehouse on the island ofSkeppsholmen inStockholm, the studio opened in 2011.[18]
Andersson was an alcoholic through much of his adult life. He has remained ateetotaler since 2001.[19] Andersson did not disclose the extent of his substance abuse problems until a 2011 interview, at which point he had maintained nearly a decade of sobriety.[19]
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