Anderson, Stikkan

• Anderson, Stig

Stig Erik Leopold or “Stikkan” Anderson, best known as the manager of the pop group ABBA, was born to an impoverished single mother in the small Swedish town of Hova. He left school at the age of 15 and took enough night-school classes to get a job as a primary-school teacher. It was music, however, that attracted him, and in 1951, at age 16, he wrote his first song and began a career in music: song-writing, producing, publishing and managing. He soon co-founded Polar Music with a friend and the company’s first signing was with the “Hootenanny Singers,” featuring Björn Ulvaeus, who was destined to play a big role in his career. In 1959 he had a breakthrough with the hit song “Are you still in Love with Me, Klas-Goran?” During the late 1960s, he became one of Sweden’s most productive song-writers. His managing career also flourished as he added Benny Anderson to his clients, as the popular ABBA group was forming, then Björn and Benny’s girlfriends, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog. He co-wrote a number of the ABBA songs, including the Eurovison prizewinner, Waterloo, and was part owner of ABBA’s record label and publishing company. When the group broke up, however, there were questions of mismanagement, bad investments and questionable contracts, and Björn, Benny and Agnetha sued him but settled out of court in 1991. In 1989, he sold Polar Records and made a major contribution toward founding the Polar Music Prize which made its first award in1992. Alcoholism had taken a toll on his health, however, and he died of a heart attack at the age of 66.