At the age of six Benny was given his first musical instrument which was an accordion, an appropriate instrument for a young Scandinavian boy of the period. Benny quickly learned to play his new instrument and by the age of ten he was introduced to the piano, a natural progression from the accordion. Benny learned to play, or experimented with, many types of instrument. Music came to Benny naturally and was easy for him to learn. Benny did learn to play piano exceptionally well however, he never learned to read or write music. Reading and writing music, like schooling, was probably too much work and for a musical genius it was unnecessary. Benny was never too interested in school and left at approximately 15 years of age. Music was much too important to Benny to let school interfere! For a short while after leaving school Benny worked for the company that his father operated, his position there was janitorial. However, this was a short lived job for Benny, who was concentrating on his music on the side.

Benny was aquainted with one of the members of the Hepstars (lead singer-Svenne Hedlund). The Hepstars were a Swedish Beatles like band who were gaining popularity in Sweden. When the Hepstars lost their keyboardist Svenne quickly contacted Benny and asked him to join the band, Benny did so without hesitation--it was the fall of 1964. Benny was moderately successful with the Hepstars having written his first few songs for the group, remarkably all were hits in Sweden. The most notable song being "Sunny Girl".

It was during this period of time with the Hepstars that Benny met a young fellow musician, a guitar player. This fellow of similar age was a member of another (moderately) successful Swedish act-The Hootenanny Singers. This fellow, of course, is Bjorn Ulveaus and his band was similar to the popular folk act the Kingston Trio. Benny and Bjorn hit it off when they discovered that they had a lot in common and although they went separate ways with their bands these new friends remained in contact. During a 1969 Hepstar tour guitarist Janne Frisck failed to return from holiday and the band was without a neccessary member. Benny immediately called his friend Bjorn Ulvaeus. This was really Bjorns first brush with pop music and while it was a short touring period it allowed Benny and Bjorn to bond and dream (together) of much bigger things. During this time with the Hepstars Benny and Bjorn penned their first songs as a team. But the best was yet to come...

Later as each man left their respective band (Benny being broke due to a failed attempt with the Hepstars at marketing and publishing music), Benny and Bjorn would team up as a successful duo. "Benny and Bjorn" as they were now called had success throughout Scandinavia and actually broke out of Northern Europe and found success as far away as Japan, "She's my kind of girl" was a huge hit in the land of the rising sun.

Of course by this time (approximately 1969) Bjorn had met Agnetha and Benny was just about to meet Frida. Each were already pop stars in their own right. The next recordings, of course, included the girls! Even though the girls did not always recieve mention they did participate in "En Karusell", "Lycka" and several recordings during this period. Benny and Bjorn's next project was an Album called "Lycka", which in English roughly translates to "Happiness". Certainly this was true for Benny he had finally arrived, and I doubt he could have been happier. Now, finally, all the pieces necessary to form the first (and only) Swedish super group had come together! Within the next three years the duo Benny and Bjorn would evolve into Benny, Bjorn, Anna and Frida and then into ABBA (an acronym created with the first initial of their legal names).

In 1974 ABBA won the Eurovision song contest with their entry "Waterloo", out of thousands of songs entered ABBA had won! And their performance was watched by over 500 million people in more than 30 countries.