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A forgotten bass genius: Rutger Gunnarsson

#21
The bass was stellar on the original album tracks, but go see the movie Mamma Mia - disregard everything that is going on on the screen (the plot sucks) and listen - they remade those tracks for the movie with Gunnar on bass, and it is better than the original IMHO...unbelievable musician.
 
#22
Ya want tricky try playing Soldiers or Head over Heels off The Visitors. One of us is a little tricky but nothing compared to Soldiers. Getting that dual string slide ain't easy.

Rutger is a genius. Every song has excellent lines and some are extraordinary.

Jim
 
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#23
I agree with you, deekay911. I have this dream that producer Benny Andersson might one day be pursuaded to release an instrumental-only version of the Mamma Mia! soundtrack. That the wonderful Rutger Gunnarson and so many of ABBA's original backing musicians could be assembled 30+ years later to recreate these tunes in a state-of-the art digital studio was to me an outstanding achievement and many of these instrumental tracks sound amazing. S.O.S. for example, which I've long believed is one of the most perfect pop tunes ever written with its innovative mix of major and minor keys, acoustic and electric instruments, and classical and rock influences, is so incredibly rendered on this sound track it truly comes alive.

As a sidebar, the notion that ABBA was a disco act is a peculiarly North American idea, where the band's success was more limited than in the rest of the world and where Dancing Queen is their most-remembered hit. Ironically Dancing Queen doesn't have a disco beat and never made the Billboard dance chart. In fact ABBA only ever placed two songs on the US dance chart. Voulez-Vous reached number 1 there; the classically disco Gimme, Gimme, Gimme never charted and was largely unknown before being added to the stage version of Mamma Mia! and sampled by Madonna.
 
#24
I'm glad to see Rutger get the credit he so richly deserves. He is a superb all-around musician, and his basslines and occasional arrangements for Benny and Bjorn are all superb.

Ola Brunkert was a great drummer, too, and he and Rutger were one of pop's great rhythm sections.

AK
 
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#25
An unsung bass hero, and one of my own personal inspirations. I think there's a lot comparison wise between him and someone like Jamerson, or Chuck Rainey, where the note selection is very important, but just as important is the delivery of those notes and how they keep the songs chugging along.
 
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#33
I remember beholding Super trooper's Vinyl's Jacket at my parents place and feeling a strange effect listening to it again and again, same kind of effect i felt when i heard queen's 'kind of Magic'.

Actually, 2 amazing composers, clever guys who suited those two girl's voices so well, the voicings and harmonies are huge as well as melodies, their Sound engineer was even among the first ones to double track the voices.

All the elements were there to make AbbA One of THE bands of the last century, my respects, and as a bass player to Rutger Gunnarsson, who's bass was the perfect impulse to the overall. A real Alchemy like i rarely heard.
 
#34
ABBA's "One of use" bass line is true masterpiece for me. I listened it so many times and there is always someting "uncatchable" amazing in it, i don't know is it octave pick in right time, fantastic textured line.
I'm glad there are more people who recognize this also.
 
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#35
Not many know this but after Abba split up when Agnetha left, it wasn't just Björn and Bennie who stuck with making music Frida is heard singing on Post-Abba work such as the Musical Chess and the Murray Head single "One night in Bangkok" if it weren't for the fact that Agnetha wasn't part in that it would have been an Abba single.

YouTube - One Night in Bangkok (CHESS) Murray Head

Listen to Gunnarson laying it down on that song.
 
#36
They did a lot of disco songs and when they were popular I didn't care for them at all. As I've gotten older, I have been listening to a lot of music from the 1960's and 1970's that I had never listened to before. There are some great bass lines in many of Abba's songs as well as many other bands from that era.

Years ago, I read an article in Bassplayer magazine that listed songs that had great basslines but were by bands that you would never consider listening to. Some of the bands mentioned were Abba, The Jackson 5, The Monkees and even The Partridge Family. I thought it was crazy at the time but then I decided to listen to some of these songs. If you can get past the cheesy lyrics, you realize that there was some great musicianship. Obviously the result of session players.
 

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