Benny Andersson on BAO’s popularity – come along for a nostalgic journey and also meet the next generation of musicians
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By: JENS PETERSON
There are moments when Benny Andersson is on stage and can drop his concentration on what he is playing. Enjoys listening to his orchestra and watch the dancing crowd.
– The sun goes down and it becomes dark and finally we use the turbo and save the best songs for the end. Such experiences you don’t get in any other way, Benny Andersson says. It’s quite wonderful and pleasurable.
It’s just after three in the morning and the tour bus rolls in at the hotel. Benny Andersson and the others in his orchestra bring their bags and instruments and are going to sleep after a four-hour concert in tropical heat.
Calle Jakobsson goes down to the sea and jumps in. The water is still and the moon shines over the dark water of Skälderviken when the sun is about to go up in the east. Magic. Can the nocturnal vision inspire Calle Jakobsson to play the hard rock rif of Deep Purple’s song “Smoke on the Water” on the tuba when he kicks off the concert tonight with “Glasgow boogie”?
The summer. The kind of experiences we hope to get. Something new and unexpected, even when we return to the places and people. To do roughly the same things, but dream that the days will contain something unusual. Some want to go to the same cottage, to the same country. Wants to see the same sing-a-long and the same Midsomer Murders. Eat the same herring and strawberries. Barbeque. Have a picnic. Re-runs, but with new endings.
Hot Dogs mandatory
A tour with BAO has many old acquaintances. The choice of songs is partially favorites that have been chiselled out for 15 years. Venues get return visits. The musicians always eat hot dogs during the break, and freshly baked buns on the bus.
In the three years since last tour Kalle Moraeus has become a much loved television host.
– I got an entirely different career than what I thought when I was young, Kalle Moraeus says. Suddenly I became a TV guy. It’s great fun. I hope it will continue for a while.
But in BAO, he has the same role as every year. A master of many string instruments who often has to stress with instruments shifts to be ready when the next song starts. He also sings two songs which are greeted by cheering, “Beatrice” and “O sole mio”. It’s the same professionals who manage sound and lights and stage construction and all the practicalities on the tour. Kjell Lindh drives the bus again. Bassist Jogga manages the V65-system, which this weekend will close at 2800 lines. That provides six rows of five correct bets, which makes the loss a third of the stakes. It’s in other kind of games that this orchestra is a winner and Swedish champions.
Children and partners
The same musicians have been involved since 2001. With one exception. A few years ago Nicke Göthe in Orsa fiddlers for health reasons chose not to tour, and reduce his playing. A tour with BAO is also about families. Children and partners come along, and the kids help with record selling and to offer candy in the bus. Children from the first tours have become adults. Those who were too small has now grown up enough to join in. Elvira Körberg, 7, makes her tour debut in the summer 2016. Johanna Moraeus, 20, has this year grown up to be a coordinator of the youth activities and tries to put up with daddy Kalle telling the whole world and a few more that she has been accepted to the Academy of Music. There’s a lot of musicality in the orchestra families.
Plays obscure ABBA song
One of the new songs during the summer concerts is “Put on your white sombrero”. Someone who knows their ABBA knows that the song was published during their active time, but was only released on the box “Thank you for the music” in 1994.
– It started at the rehearsal, Benny Andersson says. Tommy sang “Månstrålar klara” and it’s the same swing so I started to play “Sombrero”. “What do you think about this? I said.
The band had barely heard it, it’s a pretty obscure ABBA song.
They practice it. A few days later is the premiere and “Put on your white sombrero” is played. But Benny thinks something is missing. So for the second concert he persuades Tora Thorslund, married to Calle Jakobsson, to play the trumpet together with Leffe Lindvall to increase the feeling of Mexican mariachi band. It sounds amazing. At later concerts Ellinor Bengtsson, daughter of Janne Bengtsson, manages that trumpet with glory.
The fans on the album
There are more spontaneous whims. BAO has a fan club that calls itself BAO Prao’s and they found each other when they were all fans of “Kristina från Duvemåla”. They save money and vacation days in order to watch as many concerts as possible. They stand at the front during the band’s concerts. The orchestra appreciates their energetic dancing and singing which is contagious to others in the audience.
Last winter the new album “Mitt hjärta klappar för dig” was recorded.
– I had the song ”Timmarna går så fort när man har roligt” and it’s a little music hall, a little sing-a-long, Benny Andersson says. I thought of BAO Prao’s, they are always with us, singing and dancing and clapping at our gigs. I called them and all eight of them came.
The recording went well.
– The girls learned it in no time and sang really well, Benny Andersson says. “While you’re here, can’t you try to sing on a few other songs?”
There were several songs where BAO Prao’s give a little new sound to the orchestra. Now they do the same at the concerts. Though they remain in place in the audience at the front.
– I said, “while you’re here – if you get a mic each can’t you sing?”, Benny Andersson says. It’s nice of them to do that.
It also suggests a relaxed attitude with bandleader Andersson, and a desire to make every show different. Familiar, but with a touch of the unknown.
The concerts with BAO is four hours, contains newly written and older works like “Cadillac”, once a top ten hit for his Hep Stars. And a handful of the 1970’s group he was in.
– It’s more fun to play ABBA songs that people don’t know so well. “Kisses of fire” and “Why did it have to be me” are not so well known, Benny Andersson says. The orchestra has many brilliant musicians. Janne Bengtsson’s flute in “Badinerie” and “Byss-Kalle”, the musician’s leg breaking dance “Bälter Sven’s paradpolkett” and drummer Jörgen Stenberg’s “Jehu” where Tommy Körberg keeps the pace on the drums.
Another member shines in an important way. Lars Rudolfsson plays accordion and all the time looks so wonderfully happy that it rubs off on the audience. He gives the joy of playing a face and laughs charmingly at every joke in the small talk from Benny Andersson, Helen Sjöholm and Tommy Körberg.
– There are more vocal tracks on the last album than before, and it’s fun to meet the audience with that material, Helen Sjöholm says. When we started 15 years ago, it was a job. Now I’ve longed for the tour and it’s almost like vacation to tour with this band.
Before each concert there is a sound check before the gates are opened to the audience. The sound is set, but it’s also a chance to try new things and rehearse pieces that went wrong the night before. Parts which limped, backing vocals are corrected, words that were lost in the lyrics.
– Björn and Benny’s songs are easy to understand and sticks immediately, says Tommy Körberg. It’s like when I worked with Hasse and Tage. I can’t learn bad lyrics, but BAO has no bad lyrics. Though “Cadillac” is perhaps a bit of goofy lyrics, that’s no academic level really.
The shirt is used one night only
27 degrees and constantly wasting sun. At the concerts Tommy Körberg sweats in his elegant suit with vest and Moraeus’ cowboy shirts can only be used one night. In daytime there are baths, lunches at postcard beautiful lakes where the orchestra queues for ice cream along with people on holiday leave. This year marks 50 years since Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus found each other. Sunday, June 5, 1966 Hep Stars and Hootenanny singers met in folk park Sweden. In that night’s after party, they discovered that they had much in common. A cooperation which has created musical history was born.
The same date this year their anniversary was celebrated at Berns in Stockholm.
– We invited people we’ve worked with. In various tours, music, theaters, studios. There were people who hadn’t seen each other for 42 years. It was wonderful, Benny Andersson says.
Secret tribute
Ludvig Andersson suggested that Björn and Benny would not know the full program for the evening. Instead, a party committee of Ludvig, Lars Rudolfsson, Görel Hanser and the evening’s MC Claes af Geijerstam was formed.
– It was great fun. They showed clips and photos I haven’t seen or heard before, Benny Andersson says. And artists sang. It started with Tomas Ledin, Anders Glenmark and Claes who sang “Jag väntar vid min mila”. For real. It was fantastic.
And it got him to think.
– Why do I feel this way? When they sang you were moved back to 1964, and it struck me that all of us who are in this age are miss those times when the world was a little easier to like. I think it’s the same with BAO.
– People are transported to other times, Benny Andersson says. We who play like it for musical reasons, but for the audience memories are probably an important ingredient. I haven’t thought about it before but I did when I heard “Jag väntar vid min mila”.
BAO’s blend of dance music is like no others.
– This orchestra started just for one reason. I had the song “Vår sista dans” which was Thore Ehrling to a T and therefore we ended up on the dance floor Galejan at Skansen for our first gig. The new album “Mitt hjärta klappar för dig” has many danceable numbers.
– I knew we were going on tour, so I wanted to do some songs that you can dance to. It appears to have worked.
6000 per night
Benny Andersson Orkester waltzes on. Helen Sjöholm may sing about “Vår sista dans” every night, but after 15 years together they seem to have more fun than ever on their journeys around the summer. The number of audience every evening is around 6000, with 7500 in Helsingborg/Sofiero as a peak. Both the musicians and the audience seem to look forward to this tradition. No last dance in sight. “The hours pass so fast when you’re having fun” is the name of one of the new songs. Final lyric line? We’ll meet again.