Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Rumours that ABBA recorded a message together at The Rival Hotel in early February for this event proved unfounded.

Frida and Benny gave press interviews backstage and both gave long and gracious speeches on the honour of being included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Benny accompanied country singer Faith Hill on the piano for a performance of "The Winner Takes It All".

     Introduction/Induction                     Frida & Benny speeches                 The Winner Takes It All               Backstage interview    
          
                                                                                                                          (or see it here)

            Aftonbladet report                                  Rapport                    Press Conference (amateur film)   Press Conference (amateur film)
          
              (or see it here)                                (or see it here)

     Los Angeles TV News

A longer clip (8 minutes) was broadcast on the website of Kulturnyheterna for a month after the event which has now expired in which Frida and Benny were interviewed by Per Sinding Larsen. In the interview, Benny and Frida were asked what it means to ABBA to be elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Frida said that she didn't know what it meant to ABBA as a group, but for her personaly she felt proud and that she always will feel that way about it. Benny said that it probably means most within the music bussines and that they are the only non anglo-saxon act that are elected. They also discussed how it over the years it has appeared that ABBA are and have been appreciated by other artists who no one thought would like ABBA and that this might have affected the jury.  Frida said that she wasn't surprised being elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and that the fact that ABBA still is alive shows how genuine and well-crafted the songs were. Benny said that Mamma Mia! of course has meant a lot to the popularity of ABBA but that it doesn't explain it alone; it was, after all, the same songs.

Frida: "I don’t know if I was supposed to dance there but … I’d rather not! Good evening everybody.
This has been an absolutely fantastic evening, I’m so thrilled and also it’s a very emotional evening, in a way, for me, for us. We haven’t been a group, we haven’t performed or sung together for 28 years. We broke up in ’82 and I never think we will reunite again – it’s a bit too late for that.
I must also say, being a grandmother, I have felt like a teenager tonight!  I’ve had such fun and to, it’s like, being at a private rock and roll party you know, to see all your favourites, being inspired by them again. It has been absolutely fantastic, I am so thrilled by this evening. And we are of course very honoured and happy and grateful to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - to be a part of this illustrious group of very talented people, many of them being our inspiration and our role models. And this is kind of beyond all you can ever dream of.
As we haven’t  played together for such a long time I actually want to give my thanks to the fellow members in the band - Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha … Agnetha and Bjorn are very sorry they cannot be here tonight but they send their love and they are of course very grateful, very honoured to be a part of this and even if they are not here tonight, they are here in spirit. I spoke to Agnetha today actually because I wanted to hear how she was and how she felt about that and she was very emotional and very proud to be inducted in this Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
I also want to say thank you to Stikkan - Stikkan Anderson our late manager. He was also called the fifth member of ABBA. He was a great guy and without him I don’t think we would have been where we are today, standing here tonight. (Applause)  Thank you.
And I’m truly very touched by what once started as partnerships a long time ago and that this has brought us here tonight.
I also wish to say thank you to all our fans, our very loyal fans all around the world. I know some of them are here today. Ones for example have travelled all the way from Australia to be here just for this and to meet us in person. I think this is so moving. I also want to say thank you to one of our biggest fans and that’s my grandson Jonathan sitting over there!  He has always loved our music although he’s a heavy metal musician. He loves our music and he loves his grandmother! I’m very proud of you darling,  love you!".  Benny ...

(someone shouts out)
Benny: (in response), "Hi Gary!  You know, this is so absolutely incredible to stand here ... You should know that Sweden is a great country to live in (applause)... but when I grew up in the 50s, well all of us grew up in the 50s in Sweden, we had no radio so therefore we couldn't hear the rhythm and blues and the rock and roll. There was a radio, there was one channel, a public service channel and they would play maybe one hour, two hours of music per day - "Whistle While you Work" kind of programmes - and they would start with a classical number and then we'd go all through all sorts of music and if we were lucky they would play maybe one popular song at the end of that show, that's what we had. So we were fed up, not fed up, we were fed with Swedish folk music, Italian arias, French chansons, German schmaltz and John Philip Sousa (laughter) and not so bad actually because put that all together and it becomes what you can hear, or some of it, on the ABBA records. So we didn't have any blues like you would call it blues in Sweden, we had some kind of blues because above the 59th, what's it called, the, the, the latitude, the north latitude, from eastern Russia, through Finland into Scandinavia, there's this "melancholy belt", sometimes mistaken for the vodka belt (laughter). And if you live in a country like Sweden with five, six months of snow and the sun disappears totally for like, 2 months, that would be reflected in the work of artists - I believe so.  I mean you can, it's definitely in the Swedish folk music, you can hear it in the Russian folk songs, you can hear it in the music from Jean Sibelius or Edvard Grieg from Norway, you could see it in the eyes of Greta Garbo and you can hear it in the voice of Jussi Björling. And er, actually you can hear it in the sound of Frida and Agnetha on some of our songs too - and for those who are observant enough, they might even spot it in the odd Ingmar Bergman movie.  So - no radio, but there were record shops. So I bought my first record in 1957 - "Jailhouse Rock" with Elvis Presley (applause) with a great B-side, "Treat Me Nice".  And from thereon there was really no turning back because .. if it wasn't for those songs by Lieber & Stoller, Goffin-King, The Beach Boys records, Lennon & McCartney, Ray Davis, the Motown catalogue, Joni Mitchell or Chuck Berry or all those others, we would not be here tonight. So I think ABBA is a mix of all this European stuff that we had when we were young kids and also what came after that and you know, I was thinking the other day, just before we came her to New York, that, if all the members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame never existed, what would the world be like then?  You can think about that for a while. I think it would be pretty dull. So the inspiration that we've had from all those wonderful songwriters and performers combined with this European thing is what made it possible for us in ABBA to reach out with music to the rest of the world in a time when all the pop or rock acts were either American or English and now finally, these songs have brought us all the way into the great Rock and Roll Hall of Fame where all our heroes already are. And for that, and I speak for all four of us - Agnetha, Frida, Björn and myself, I say for that we are deeply, deeply honoured.  Thank you."

(referring to the song he's about to play .. ) "You can play some Swedish blues"
 

Interview

Performance of "The Winner Takes It All"

Rapport


Los Angeles News Report