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Rutger Gunnarsson - ABBA's bass-player

#41
Nope, Rutger ACED, he has a very huge role in the ABBA arrangements, first of all, he's classically schooled (classical acoustic guitar, harp, and orchestra/string arranging), and second, he sight reads perfect, something that impressed benny and björn from the first day they met him.
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Cool. When I first listened to ABBA long long time ago, I didn't pay attention to the bass. Now I pay close attention to the bass in ABBA songs. The bass truly drives a lot of their songs.
 
#42
Chrisk-K said:
Cool. When I first listened to ABBA long long time ago, I didn't pay attention to the bass. Now I pay close attention to the bass in ABBA songs. The bass truly drives a lot of their songs.
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Indeed it does!

There's a story of how Rutger joined ABBA, it's about another band Björn and Benny had, that was called "Hootenany Singers", playing folk songs in a more modern style, and they where looking for a bass player for their summer tour. A friend of Rutger heard about this and told Rutger, who at the time was studying classical guitar at the academy, that he should apply.

Rutger went to meet the guys, and the first test was to sing all together with the other band members, so Rutger, who after all was and is trained, just took the sheet and said, "ok, lets go 1-2-3-4" and started singing while sight reading.

Story goes that they never even tried, impressed by this amazing guy who just took a sheet and started singing, his competence on the bass, he got the job direct!


:)


D.Don
 
#44
D.Don said:
Nope, Rutger ACED, he has a very huge role in the ABBA arrangements, first of all, he's classically schooled (classical acoustic guitar, harp, and orchestra/string arranging), and second, he sight reads perfect, something that impressed benny and björn from the first day they met him.

:)

D.Don
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Wow!! Just goes to show you that a university education does take you a long way...(in addition to having some natural talent of course! Kudos to Rutger!
 
#48
MacheteJames said:
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.
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I thought it was a bit of a joke when I had to learn Dancing Queen in a covers band. 2 minutes into trying to chart out the line...... I stopped laughing. I think it took me about 3 gigs before I really nailed the groove.
 
#49
D.Don said:
Indeed it does!

There's a story of how Rutger joined ABBA, it's about another band Björn and Benny had, that was called "Hootenany Singers", playing folk songs in a more modern style, and they where looking for a bass player for their summer tour. A friend of Rutger heard about this and told Rutger, who at the time was studying classical guitar at the academy, that he should apply.

Rutger went to meet the guys, and the first test was to sing all together with the other band members, so Rutger, who after all was and is trained, just took the sheet and said, "ok, lets go 1-2-3-4" and started singing while sight reading.

Story goes that they never even tried, impressed by this amazing guy who just took a sheet and started singing, his competence on the bass, he got the job direct!


:)


D.Don
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Hootenanny Singers was the group Björn was in before he teamed up with Benny. Benny, on the other hand, was the keyboard player for "Hep Stars", which was quite big in Sweden during the sixties. Notable for having a singer with a one-sided hunch back who was a huge teen girl magnet.
 
#50
I generally ignored ABBA because it wasn't my thing but when I was booked to do a gig that involved an ABBA medley I was absolutely blown away by Rutger's playing.

Dancing Queen is a masterclass in disco bass.

I wonder what he's doing these days.
 
#51
If any of you ABBA fans want to hear some seriously unusual arrangements of ABBA tunes, get your hands on an album called "Funky ABBA" by Nils Landgren and the Funk Unit. Nils is a Scandanavian trombonist with a crazy-hot smoking band ... not sure when the album was released, but the bassist is a guy named Lars Danielsson and he has the groove down pat. Great, great player .... :cool:

Word of warning, though .... if your sig other likes the original ABBA arrangements, they might just hate this album. But I've not met one musician who isn't knocked out by the way Nils Landgren revamped these tunes ....
 
#52
The man is an amazing player - subtle, complex, melodic and surprisingly funky. I never thought about him at all until a few years ago when I heard "Dancing Queen" on the radio or in a movie and then tried to duplicate that killer bass part. That was a rapid lesson in humility - it sounds vastly easier than it is for even a very experienced bassist to play.

He's a beast. The Nordic Jamerson or Osborn.

1 part Mamas and the Papas + 1 part Phil Spector=Abba

Edit: jacharry, I think he's the musical director for Celine Dion or someone of that ilk. The guy could do everything - write, play, arrange, so I imagine there's not much grass growing under Rutger's feet.
 
#53
Chrisk-K said:
Cool. When I first listened to ABBA long long time ago, I didn't pay attention to the bass. Now I pay close attention to the bass in ABBA songs. The bass truly drives a lot of their songs.
Click to expand...

+ 1.

Another thing to note. ABBA was on the cutting edge of music videos. Back in the mid 70's, pre-MTV, it was pretty uncommon to see vids of music group doing much of anything other than performing on stage. Here is an example of what they were doing back in 76.

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Then there is the legendary vocal arrangements.




PS. I was going to start a thread asking who the bass player was, but bless the God Google for leading right back to the forum I should have started with in the first place.
 
#55
Hate to say it, but sign me on to the list of admirers too.

Just did an ABBA gig last night and the stuff just works! Before this group had even played the gig that was the reason we formed, we had been booked into an outdoor festival.

It took me 8 hours to prepare my parts for just 40 minutes of music. This stuff is not what people think it is, this is well crafted music. Hard not to move when playing the groove - and I am (IN)famous for not dancing on stage.
 
#60
Nice story, however, you forgot an important fact for Rutger's audition (that actually was for Hootenanny Singers, Björn's and Benny's band before abba), he was no bassplayer, but a classical guitar student and needed a job….

" Rutger joined the ABBA family in 1972, when he was a classical guitar major at Stockholm's Royal College of Music. A classmate tipped him off about a bass audition for the pre-ABBA band the Hootenanny Singers. ''Their act included a comedy part where the whole band sang harmony, so they started with that,'' Rutger remembers. ''I sang my part right off the sheet-no problem to me-but it apparently impressed them enough to offer me the job on the spot. I didn't even touch the bass!'' "

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:D
 

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