Rutger Gunnarsson - ABBA's bass-player

[Jules Forcella]

Howdy,


he's one of my great inspirations

who else of you guys have been infected of his "phat, tricky & groovy" basslines ??????

for the guys who hadn't listened to him and are laughing right now I can promise - you've missed some


Keep on shakin' !!!!!

Greets, Jules

[cetera]

I'm with you all the way!!

Rutger is a wonderfully melodic player who played some cracking basslines with ABBA. Sadly he seems severely underrated, simply because he was a 'backing' musician!

[Jules Forcella]

so cetera and I are the only fans of Rutger ????

can't be true......

greets, jules

[cetera]

I expect people think they are too 'cool' to join this thread....

[Jules Forcella]

guess so........

[MacheteJames]

I noticed his playing too. He's got an excellent feel for space and the groove. "Dancing Queen" is a tricky song to play correctly because of Rutger's slippery groove.

[dangnewt]

I certainly appreciate the pop genius of ABBA - I'll listen closer to the bass in the future. You don't reach the level of worldwide success that they did without an entire band of excellent musicians.

[NewWaveBasser]

I also noticed the bass playing in ABBA songs!

Especially "Knowing Me, Knowing You" (verse part as the bass seems to envelope the song) and "Voulez Vous" with that little bass fill near the end.

IIRC ABBA had two different bassists over their career...

[jinithith2]

i hope no one minds me reviving a thread from 2 years ago...
I was just listening to ABBA last night and I HAVE to learn the basspart to dancing queen. It's sad that the bassist is so overshadowed...

[Drucocu]

I must confess..my girlfriend always talked about ABBA, and told me, everybody loves abba!!..

then I thought I give it a try and bought a best of album, man, this is the s&%t !!!
the basslines are soooo funky, really great stuff!

now I'm sure, everybody LOVES ABBA !!!

[MCT]

I love the bassline to Dancing Queen... He really is a underrated.

[melt]

He's one of my all-time favorites. Fabulous player.

[bassteban]

Great stuff- we youtube it up & dance like dorks for hours. TB Abba bassline fan club?

[DZIB]

He is a great player. Great lines/feel in "The Name of The Game" and "Knowing Me, Knowing You" to name a couple off the top of my head.

Hey, ABBA was a great band in their day. Melodic to say the least.

[spideyjg]

Great playing is great playing regardless of all else. Lots to steal from Rutger.

I love some of his lines on Head over Heels and Soldiers off The Visitors CD.

Jim

[Jussi Finland]

Growed up listening all those ABBA records late seventies---- And think that´s the BEST pop music ever(for me). Those songs/basslines are amazing. And how in the hell there´s no THE ABBA BASSLINE BOOK(or something like that) out there????? Maybe same style of book like Dr.Licks`s Standing In The Shadows Of Motown "The Life And Music Of Legendary Bassist James Jamerson". Hey! Rutger Gunnarsson played on recordings that´s been sold over 300 millions copies!!!!!!!
So Hal Leonard and other major music book companies HELLO!! or Rutger if you are reading this, maybe some Swedish music book company would do that book(and you check those trancriptions ) for all OF US Bass Players. And was very nice to hear that ABBA movie soundtrack!!!

[bassteban]

I agree.

[EddieG]

+1 here. Been a fan of Rutger's playing for a long time.

[basmartin]

Ruger is great! Played a Fender Jazz in those days and nowdays he plays a pre-Gibson Tobias. Mike Watson is the name of the other bassplayer who played with ABBA, also a great bassplayer.

[D.Don]

There was quite a few good peeps involved in abba's backing band during the world tours, Rutger sure did a lot of great lines there, however I am a bit curios how much was actually played by Björn & Benny in the studio since they both are quite great musicians both of them.

(Yeah I am Swedish too)

D.Don