Forty years after the release of "Waterloo", ABBA is finally celebrated at Waterloo (Station); new book titled "ABBA - The Backstage Stories" by Ingmarie Halling, looks to be the must-buy book of the year for some of us with a certain Old School musical sensibility that leans decidedly towards melody & harmony

 

ABBA fetes 40 years since 'Waterloo': near Waterloo http://t.co/4ucb0Sc1G7
— Reuters Showbiz (@ReutersShowbiz) April 8, 2014

40 years today since ABBA swept Eurovision Song Contest with their song Waterloo, becoming first Swedes to win: http://t.co/aLNQJtziq3
— Sweden.se (@swedense) April 6, 2014

Expressen TV's Oscar Julander interviews author Ingmarie Halling about her new book on ABBA.
http://www.expressen.se/tv/nyheter/primetime/det-osminkade-abba/

.@ExpressenTV: "The unvarnished Abba" -Author of new book - ABBA "The Backstage Stories". "Det osminkade Abba" http://t.co/oKvW8Mk0Gy
— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) April 8, 2014

Bonniervideo YouTube Channel: ABBA - The Backstage Stories Interview with author Ingmarie Halling (ABBA - The Backstage stories intervju med Ingmarie Halling) 

Uploaded February 24, 2014 http://youtu.be/gWoYhDsfEaA

More information on the new book at Bonnier's website under 40 år sedan Waterloo

http://www.bonnierforlagen.se//Katalog/BonnierFakta/Var-2014/Abba---backstagestories/

ABBA - The Backstage Stories intervju med Ingmarie Halling http://t.co/qUAolgwcqp via @YouTube - @ABBATheMuseum @GAFFA_se :-)
— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) April 8, 2014

Photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Above, my photo from January 2013 of the welcoming party that greeted me at the luggage carousel at Arlanda Stockholm Airport... ABBA.  
As seen in my May 7, 2013 blog post titled, "A" is for Awesome and ABBA as the new ABBA Museum in Stockholm officially opens this afternoon. Monday night's gala premiere brought Anni-Frid, Benny and Björn together, cheered on by a select group of invitees from across Swedish society and the music industry, who are, in the end, just fans of the band like everyone else, and very excited that this amazing museum is FINALLY a reality; #abba, #AbbaMuseum, #ThankYouForTheMusic, @stockholm, @sweden. 
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-is-for-awesome-and-abba-as-new-abba.html

TheSpringOf74 YouTube Channel video: ABBA - Dancing Queen - LIVE at the Royal Swedish Opera, Stockholm, June 18, 1976, at the gala tribute to Sweden's King Carl XV1 Gustaf and future wife and Queen, Silvia Sommerlath, the night before their wedding.

This was the first time the song had ever been performed in public in Sweden. 

http://youtu.be/33Yj5pbsXAs

Above, in my humble opinion, the single best version of this iconic song ever recorded on film.

Ten Americans come to Sweden for the first time, eager to find their family roots. "Allt för Sverige" premieres Sunday on SVT

SVT teaser video: Allt för Sverige. October 13, 2011

http://youtu.be/-VpxMlWzCcs

SVT promo video: Allt för Sverige - De söker sitt svenska ursprung.

Video is available for viewing on website until January 18, 2011.

SVT promo video: Allt för Sverige - The Landing in Torekov.

Video is available for viewing on website until January 18, 2011.

Ten Americans come to Sweden for the first time, eager to find their family roots. "Allt för Sverige" premieres Sunday on SVT.

And best of all for those of you who don't speak Svenska, the eight-part series hosted by Anders Lundin of SVT's daily Gomorron Sverige news/info/chat show is mostly in English, with Swedish sub-titles, unlike this video below of him talking about the upcoming shows, where he plays the role of not just the amiable host, but also part-time teacher, part-time psychologist, as he takes his charges thru some competition and tries his best to instill in them a sense of the best parts of what it is to be Swedish.

Anders Lundin of Gomorron Sverige on the new SVT show he hosts, Allt för Sverige. Video is available for viewing on website until October 23, 2011.

But then it's a reality show, so, good intentions notwithstanding, it's not like the show's cast was going to be talking about high-level economic policy, so you'll be able to follow along with no problems.

As someone who knows from first-hand experience, there are few 'bugs' harder to shake than the genealogy 'bug,' since when you least expect it, it will play havoc with your life and daily schedule for weeks or months if you let it, causing you to stay up all night looking at hard-to-decipher handwriting on censuses from the 19th Century, instead of catching up on your much-needed sleep.

To use a cliche I never have used here before -been there, done that.

The new Allt för Sverige program website is chock full of info & videos: http://svt.se/2.162106/

When I first moved to Washington, D.C. in the summer of 1988, blessed with a not-so-great air conditioner at my place on Capitol Hill, just five blocks east of the U.S. Capitol, I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours at The National Archives on the National Mall, and, even closer to me, at the Local History and Genealogy Reading Room in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, the one just east of the Capitol and south of the Supreme Court.

Yes, back before the Internet made staying in a large room all day on a beautiful winter Saturday to try to find one small needle in a haystack in a 100-year old book you'd never seen before, seem even crazier than it sounds to read here now.

Sometimes, those hours seemed like years...

And speaking fo Swedish heritage, now for something completely different... from Shay's (SHAYMCN1) amazing treasure trove of ABBA and rock videos:

Agnetha Fältskog - Tack Sverige (Thank You Sweden, 1968)

http://youtu.be/r6_LjF2_M90

Too precious for words!

But, of course, unlike in the song above, some Swedes did leave... and some of them became famous all over the world as Swedish-Americans...

Ann-Margret - BYE BYE BIRDIE title song (1963)

http://youtu.be/1t3cBTb3xPc

Later that same year, twenty-two year old Ann-Margret got very animated ...

Ann-Margret as Ann-Margrock singing on ABC-TV's The Flintstones - "I Ain't Gonna Be Your Fool No More" (STEREO, HD)

http://youtu.be/9lja2WFkRos

-----

A little info on the first city the cast sees, Torekov, in Skåne County, right next door to, yes, Halland County.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/travel/19explorer.html

NY Times travel articles on Sweden:

http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/europe/sweden/overview.html

http://www.archives.gov/

http://www.archives.gov/research/genealogy/

http://www.loc.gov/rr/genealogy/

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL99B5CD646A721147

http://www.youtube.com/user/2Shaymcn

http://www.youtube.com/user/SHAYMCN3

35 years ago today, THE definitive visual look of ABBA's Dancing Queen

2Shaymcn YouTube Channel: ABBA - Dancing Queen (HQ) - LIVE at the Royal Swedish Opera, Stockholm, June 18, 1976. http://youtu.be/qk_Vu6AcbWg

Above, in my humble opinion, the single best version of this song ever recorded on film.

Thirty-five ago today, one of the most popular songs of the late 20th-Century got the definitive visual look it needed to go supernova, and there it stays, frozen in our collective memories.

Well, at least among those of us with a yen for genius lyrics and power-pop harmonies.

The day before the 1976 Royal Wedding in Stockholm of King Carl XVI Gustaf and his fiancee, commoner Silvia Sommerlath, the present Queen Silvia, during a variety program celebrating the nuptials, ABBA performed a never-to-be forgotten costumed version of Dancing Queen at the Royal Swedish Opera for them and their invited guests.

As you watch the video, you can see the almost bewildered look of many of the officials and other musicians seated behind them on the stage, who, the story goes, because of their unfamiliarity with the song, had no genuine idea whether or not the song was supposed to be about the future queen -or not.

And yes, it does remind all of us again of the group's marketing genius, since two years prior, at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton that made them famous, they wore early 19th-Century costumes when they performed Waterloo, which earned them first place.

ABBAVevo: ABBA -Dancing Queen (1976)

http://youtu.be/xFrGuyw1V8s

As of today this video has received 9,355,415 views.

The current population estimate of Sweden by the CIA is 9,088,728.

Benny sliding his fingers across the piano keys at the beginning -so very, very simple and yet so genius!

Fox-TV's multi-national hit Glee featured a performance of Dancing Queen in their May 10th episode titled Prom Queen, with Amber Riley and Naya Rivera doing the duet.

You can watch the entire episode on Fox's website until this coming Thursday at

http://www.fox.com/glee/full-episodes/937193545001/prom-queen

The song begins at 0:40:46 and goes to 0:42:39.

-----

Swedish Royal Court website: http://www.kungahuset.se/

Official Glee website: http://www.fox.com/glee/