Bravo, November 1982: The Swede with the ABBA girl

A mixture of Elton John, Rod Stewart and Barry Manilow... that's what the press sheet of the record company says. His performance is accordingly underwhelming. Indeed, Tomas Ledin is not anybody's copy, but a very headstrong, intelligent and funny type of person. Until a couple of weeks ago, no one in this part of the world knew him, but all of a sudden he is in the limelight.

And that's thanks to Agnetha. The blonde Agnetha from ABBA didn't have anything better to do than sit next to him at the piano and sing the song 'Never Again' as a duet (Musikladen, November 11). And this was cause for several speculations...

Beforehand: Tomas Ledin is not Agnetha's lover, nor Benny or Björn's brother or Frida's boyfriend. But he is closely - yes very closely - associated with all ABBA members.

As a backing singer he went along on the last big ABBA world tour in 1979/1980. He wrote the song 'Got Something' for Frida that was chosen by Phil Collins as one of the most important songs for Frida's solo LP 'Something's Going On'.

Agnetha thought he was so sympathetic and both their voices so harmonical that she recorded the song 'Never Again' (that's not to be taken literally) with him and made a musical side leap. Both ladies like him, but the gentlemen; Tomas isn't so sure about that. "I would love to record one of their songs or I would like to write a song for them. But this appetite for a collaboration is still only one-sided."

To describe Tomas' luck in the right way, we have to mention that another lady from the ABBA scene is very devoted to him: Marie Anderson, the daughter of ABBA manager Stig Anderson.

Tomas Ledin, who was born on November 25, 1952, has been a star in Sweden for ten years. When he was 18 he went to America and he wanted to become a painter. But then he discovered the guitar. And that was the first love in his life. On his return to Sweden he specialized in soft rock and soon he became one of the biggest stars in the country.

In 1979 he represented Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest - without any results to speak of. Yes, and then came ABBA.

Now he wants to give it a try in Germany. He made his debut in a very unconventional way. Four concerts in Bochum, Bonn, Frankfurt and Hamburg. All of them without an entrance fee. Whoever wanted to see and hear him could simply come.

"It's my debut," Tomas said about that. With his three piece backing band (without Agnetha) he was challenged to the extent that he ran out of English songs during the encore. He simply went on singing in Swedish. "That's typically Tomas," his girlfriend Marie said behind the scenes, "that's exactly why everybody likes him so much."