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Hep Stars
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The Hep Stars were Sweden's biggest selling rock act in the 60's, even outselling The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. The name "Hep Stars" means "Stars in the know". They were formed in 1963 and were "big" up until the late 60's. Some members of the band still get together on occasion5. In the early 70's the keyboard player, Benny Andersson, together with three other artists formed the world famous ABBA "quartet"! After ABBA, Benny and the other male ABBA member, Björn Ulveus, started writing "musicals".
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The Hep Stars was a Swedish pop group, formed in 1963. The group were among the most successful of 1960s Swedish pop groups. The band included keyboardist Benny Andersson, who went on to become a member of ABBA. The other members of the group included Svenne Hedlund on lead vocals, Janne Frisk on guitar, Christer Pettersson (d. 2006) on drums and Lelle Hegland on bass. Svenne Hedlund and Benny Andersson left the group in 1969.
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Like all successful bands at the time the Hep Stars were touring a lot in 1966. On one occasion they were invited to a party by another famous group called the Hootenanny Singers. One of its members was Björn Ulvaeus. It was at this party, in the beginning of June 1966, when Benny would meet Björn for the first time. At the end of the year a very successful album 'Hep Stars' was released which contained 'Isn't it easy to say', the first song co-written by Benny and Björn. Also at the end of the 1960s Björn would be asked to fill in on a Hep Stars tour to Finland when their guitarist Janne Frisk had failed to return from a holiday to Spain.
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Benny Andersson was, from the age of 18, a member of The Hep Stars (1964-69), a popular Swedish pop-rock group that from the start performed mostly covers of international hits. The Hep Stars were most successful in their early years, their live shows invariably creating mob scenes, many of their fans being teenage girls. Andersson played keyboards and eventually started writing original compositions for his band, most of which became major hits: "No Response" (#3 in 1965), "Sunny Girl", "Wedding", "Consolation" (all of which hit #1 in 1966), and "Speleman", among others. Benny met Björn Ulvaeus in June 1966, and started writing songs with him. Ulvaeus occasionally played guitar with The Hep Stars on stage, and Andersson soon stepped in, adding piano during The Hootenanny Singers' recording sessions. Andersson ... had a fruitful songwriting collaboration with Lasse Berghagen, with whom he wrote and submitted the song "Hej, Clown" for the 1969 Melodifestivalen, the Swedish Eurovision Song Contest finals.
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Shortly after hitting No. 1 with "Wedding" in May of 1966, the Hep Stars were invited to a party by another popular Swedish group, the Hootenanny Singers. It was there that Andersson first met Bjorn Ulvaeus, who was a member of the other group. They began writing songs together later that year, with "It Isn't Easy To Say" -- that song, along with the Ulvaeus composition "No Time," showed up on the Hep Stars' self-titled third album, issued in December of that same year. At that time, their popularity was such that the album's sales broke all records, making it the first album by a Swedish band to reach the top 20 album and singles charts.
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After being a member of Hep Stars and later ABBA he has created the musicals Chess , Kristina från Duvemåla (based on the Immigrant novels by Swedish writer Vilhelm Moberg ), and Mamma Mia! (based on existing ABBA songs), all of these together with Björn Ulvaeus .
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Hep Stars