 More than 30 years after the stunning 1974 Eurovision Song
Contest debut of the Swedish musical supergroup, ABBA’s
music remains a benchmark which continues to enthral
millions of fans around the world – both on stage and screen
as well as on vinyl and disc.
In this equally stunning tour de
force, Australian cellist and arranger Chris Patrick has
combined his life-long passion for ABBA with his
professional musical career skills to create this guide to
ABBA’s soundscape – the vocal and keyboard genius of Agnetha,
Benny, Björn and Frida, and the precision audio engineering
of Michael B Tretow and his team of arrangers – which
continues to defy truly successful emulation to this day.
With his lively and engaging
writing style, Chris takes the reader on a personally-guided
tour – to quote Foreword writer and ABBA biographer Carl
Magnus Palm – “over the hills of joyful exuberance, through
the valleys of melancholy and along the stretched-out roads
of craftsmanship where their music was created.”
The 420 pages of the book are liberally sprinkled with
hundreds of specially-created musical notation figures to
illustrate the points Chris is making in his text, where
sparkling descriptions of ABBA’s different musical
techniques join hands with some insightful – sometimes
surprising – musical analysis and thought-provoking
discussion.
But the ‘musically
illiterate’ among us need not worry – Chris pulls out all
the stops in his professional skills case and encourages the
lay reader along with much simpler note numbering and
‘sol-fa’ examples of ABBA’s genius … and if you understood
where Julie Andrews was going when she sang “Let’s start at
the very beginning …” then you will be quite at ease in the
pages of this book as well.
 At the chapter breaks, fresh
visual delights excite the eye, with a selection of images
from the covers of the hundreds of ABBA albums, discs and
singles in Chris’ own collection, each carefully chosen for
position relative to the preceding or following chapter’s
topic.
A comprehensive Glossary of
musical terms used, a Selected Discography of the essential
ABBA albums, and a detailed Index complete the book, but
before we get to the end, there is almost another
‘book-within-the-book’ first – “The world of ABBA” timeline!
Writing for a market which
includes ABBA fans today who may not even have been born
when Agnetha, Benny, Björn and Frida were at their height,
Chris has provided a fascinating snapshot of the 1960s, 70s
and 80s of ‘what in the world’ was happening at the time –
for ABBA, for the music industry in general and its chart
hits, as well as for world political and social events.
 No previous experience is
necessary for readers of all types to enjoy the tour – this
book has been carefully crafted to appeal to the interested
general reader as well as to ABBA fans and serious musicians
alike – and don’t we all have an ABBA album somewhere which
we would like to enjoy rediscovering?
You will too, after you
read this book! |
