The Swedish musician and composer Goran Bror Benny Andersson, a member of the former singing group ABBA, has written many of the best known songs of the last forty years. Born in Stockholm, at the age of 6 he started playing the accordion like his father and grandfather who taught him Swedish folk music and schlager, the easy-listening music of “dansbands.” He got his own piano at the age of 10 and taught himself to play. At 15 he left school and was playing at youth clubs when he was invited to join the Hepstars, the most popular Swedish popband of the 60s. In 1966 he became friends with Björn Ulvaeus and began collaborating with him writing songs. This led to the formation, along with their girlfriends, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog, of the group ABBA, which won the Eurovision Song contest with “Waterloo” in 1974. ABBA was successful around the globe, recording many hit songs until the group broke up in 1982. Andersson and Ulvaeus continued to work together and created the musical “Chess” which was staged first in London in 1986. In 1995, Andersson’s Swedish language musical, Kristina från Duvemåla, premiered in Sweden and ran until 1999. The hit “Mamma Mia!” came next, incorporating around 24 of ABBA’s songs; the film version became the most successful film musical of all time and the best-selling DVD ever in Great Britain. In 2001 He formed a new sixteen-musician band, BAO or Benny Anderssons Orkester, that has been very popular in Sweden: one of their songs stayed a record 243 weeks on the Svensktoppen (Swedish top hits) chart. In 2007 the Royal Swedish Academy of Music elected him a member and the following year Stockholm University awarded him an honorary doctorate; in 2012, Luleå Tekniska Universitet, gave him another. For composing the music for the documentary film “Palme” about the assassinated prime minister, Andersson received the Swedish “Guldbaggen” prize in 2012.

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.