Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad (born 15 November 1945), also known simply as Frida, is a Norwegian-born Swedish singer who is best known as one of the founding members and lead singers of the pop band ABBA.
Born in Bjørkåsen (Ballangen Municipality), Norway, to a Norwegian mother and a German father, she grew up in Torshälla, Sweden.
Lyngstad found international fame when she joined ABBA, who have sold over 400 million records (albums and singles) worldwide, making the group, which included her second husband Benny Andersson, one of the best-selling music acts in history.
After the breakup of ABBA, she continued an international solo singing career with mixed success, before retiring from music.
Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad was born to Synni Lyngstad and German soldier Alfred Haase on 15 November 1945 in Bjørkåsen, a small village in Ballangen Municipality in northern Norway. Fearing reprisal for conceiving a child with a German during Norway's wartime occupation, Synni left Bjørkåsen in 1947 with her mother Arntine and the infant Anni-Frid. Anni-Frid was taken by her grandmother to Sweden, where they settled in the region of Härjedalen. Arntine took any available job while living there, whereas Synni remained in Norway and worked for a time in the south of the country. Synni joined her mother and daughter in Sweden, and the three moved to Malmköping (72 km from Stockholm). Synni died of kidney failure soon afterwards, aged 21 years, leaving Anni-Frid to be raised solely by her grandmother Arntine. Anni-Frid grew up believing her father had died during World War II, as his ship had been reported to have sunk on its return to Germany.
In June 1949, Arntine and Anni-Frid relocated to Torshälla, outside Eskilstuna, where Arntine worked as a seamstress. Anni-Frid grew up in Torshälla and began to attend school in August 1952. During her childhood, Anni-Frid had close contact with her mother's family, particularly her uncle and four aunts, at her birthplace during the summer holidays. She was particularly close to her aunt, Olive, who once stated that she saw how lonely and subdued Anni-Frid was, and who consequently always did her best to make her feel loved and welcomed during her visits.
In 1977, the German teen magazine Bravo published a poster and a complete biography with details of Anni-Frid's background, including the names of her mother and father. It was seen by Anni-Frid's half-brother, Peter Haase, who went to his father and asked him if he had been in Ballangen during the war. A few months later, at the instigation of Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid met her father in Stockholm for the first time.
Lyngstad stated in several interviews that her grandmother frequently sang songs to her (such as old Norwegian songs), which resulted in her passion for music. She showed musical talent at a very early age, from her earliest school years. On Fridays, she was often asked by her teacher to sing in front of the class and soon became known in school and in the neighbourhood for her beautiful voice. Although her grandmother encouraged her to sing (according to Lyngstad herself), she never attended any of her performances. Her grandmother died shortly before ABBA formed, so she never witnessed the success of the group.
At the age of 13, Lyngstad gained her first job as a dance band and schlager singer in 1958, with the Evald Ek's Orchestra. Evald Ek himself remembers: "It was hard to believe, such a young person could sing that well. She was so easy to rehearse with and she was never shy onstage. The only thing I taught her was to sing out. In those days, she had a tendency of holding back her voice a little." With the Evald Elk's Orchestra, the 13-year-old Lyngstad, performed every weekend in front of a dancing audience. The sets often lasted up to five hours. The songs she liked most to sing were standards such as "All of Me", "Night and Day" and "Begin the Beguine". To advance and develop, she also started to take singing lessons for two years with opera tenor Folke Andersson. Later, she teamed up with the 15-piece Bengt Sandlunds Bigband, who performed a jazz repertoire covering Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington and Count Basie, her vocal idols being Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee. In 1963, she was the vocalist with the Gunnar Sandevarn Trio before forming her own band, the Anni-Frid Four. These groups all contained her husband, Ragnar Fredriksson.
On 3 September 1967, Lyngstad won the Swedish national talent competition "New Faces", arranged by record company EMI Svenska and held at Skansen, Stockholm. The song she chose to sing was "En ledig dag" ("A Day Off"; original title "Week-End in Portofino"). The first prize in this contest was a recording contract with EMI's Swedish subsidiary. Unbeknownst to Lyngstad, the winner of the contest was also expected to appear the same evening in the country's most popular TV show at that time, Hylands Hörna. This happened on the same day Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right-hand side. Driving on that day was discouraged, so most of the nation was watching TV that night. Lyngstad performed her winning song live. The performance can be seen on Frida – The DVD.
This first exposure to a wider television audience caused a sensation, and many record companies and producers contacted Frida immediately. EMI executives, fearing they might lose their new singer, took the precaution of driving from Stockholm to Lyngstad's home in Eskilstuna the next morning with a recording contract for her to sign. EMI producer Olle Bergman remembers: "We got so interested and fond of her and I thought she had everything a person needs to become something."
On 11 September 1967, Lyngstad recorded the vocals for "En ledig dag", which was to become her first single for EMI, under the company's British His Master's Voice label. Professional and self-assured on this first day in the studio, she recorded the vocals in just one take. The early songs she recorded for EMI are included in the compilation album Frida 1967–1972, released by EMI Sweden in 1997.
On 29 January 1968, she performed this song on Studio 8 on national television and on this occasion briefly met future ABBA member Agnetha Fältskog, who also performed her first single on the same SVT1 programme. Lyngstad toured Sweden with Lasse Lönndahl and Bengt Hallberg in 1968, and recorded several singles for EMI. At the same time, she decided to leave her family and move to Stockholm to start working full-time as a singer.
In 1969, she participated in Melodifestivalen, the Swedish heats for the Eurovision Song Contest, with the song "Härlig Är Vår Jord" ("Our Earth Is Wonderful"), and finished in fourth place. Backstage she met her future second husband and ABBA bandmate Benny Andersson.
Her first album, Frida, produced by her then-fiancé Benny Andersson, was released in 1971 by EMI Columbia. The album received generous praise from critics and the press, who especially commented on the precision and versatility of Lyngstad's voice. A reviewer for the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter wrote: "Professional, sure and certain LP-debut ... low-key but self-assured personality with sprinkles of temperament, humor and tenderness. And she sings in such a way that you understand that she's got something between her ears – she sings, in other words, in a very intelligent way." That same year, she released her single "Min egen stad" ('My Own Town'), a cover version of Andersson's song "It's Nice To Be Back" with lyrics by Peter Himmelstrand; the single reached No. 1 in Svensktoppen. All four future members of ABBA sang back-up vocals on this song. The success of the single led EMI Columbia to re-issue the Frida album with "Min egen stad" added to the beginning of side two of the LP. The entire album was included in the EMI Sweden compilation Frida 1967–1972.
Frida continued to play in cabarets, and tour and regularly perform on TV and radio. Subsequently, her relationship with Andersson, and friendship with Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog led to the formation of ABBA. In 1972, after five years with EMI Sweden, Lyngstad changed record companies and moved to the Polar Music label. She recorded the single "Man vill ju leva lite dessemellan" ("One wants to live a little from time to time"), which became her second No. 1 hit in the Swedish charts.