Stig "Stikkan" Anderson was born 25th January 1931 in Hova, a small Swedish town. The business sense that would eventually lead to such great success came to him early in life, and as a child he found several ways to earn a little extra money. As a young teenager, he learned to play the guitar and started performing at various parties and local variety shows.
At the age of 16, he wrote his first song Tivedshambo ("Hambo From Tived"). Many years later, ABBA recorded an instrumental version of the song which was included on a limited edition 12" single given to him on his 50th birthday in January 1981. The other side was the original composition Hovas vittne ("Hova's Wittness"). Tivedshambo was also the song performed the last time the four ABBA members sang together in public, in a This Is Your Life TV show dedicated to Stig in January 1986.
In the autumn of 1948, Stig started studying music at Ingesunds folk high-school, and that's where he met his future partner Bengt Bernhag. Together with a guy called Börje Crona they formed a music trio. Stig's first song to be recorded was Grädde på moset ("The Icing On The Cake") in 1950, but this first version by singing star Harry Brandelius did not become a hit.
At Ingesund, Stig also met his wife-to-be Gudrun. The pair got engaged in 1951, the same year as Stig started studying to be a teacher. In 1955, they got married and moved to Stockholm. Stig found employment as a teacher at a school in the suburb of Aspudden, just south of Stockholm, but all the while he continued writing music. He got his first big hit in 1958 with Vi hänger me' ("We're Still Here"), recorded by legendary Swedish football hero Nacka Skoglund.
The major breakthrough, however, came with the novelty hit Är du kär i mig ännu, Klas-Göran ("Are You Still In Love With Me, Klas-Göran"), recorded by singing star Lill-Babs in 1959. Stig set up his own publishing company, Sweden Music, and this song became his first registered composition. Stig's old friend Bengt Bernhag was now working as a producer at the record label Karusell, to which Lill-Babs was signed, and that was how she came to record Är du kär i mig ännu, Klas-Göran.
With this success, Stig finally decided to give up his day job as teacher and become a full-time publisher, although the first few years were very rough. Är du kär... also became a hit in a Dutch version, and Stig got in touch with a publisher there who suggested that he should become his Swedish representative.
He soon set up a system where he acquired the rights to a foreign hit song, wrote the Swedish lyrics himself (he was one of the most prolific Swedish lyricists ever), and then saw to it that the song was recorded by the right artist. Thus, a music business empire was founded.
After further hits such as Anita Lindblom's recording of Sånt är livet (a version of the 1961 Roy Hamilton hit You Can Have Her), Stig and Bengt founded the Polar record company. Their first signees was the folk music group the Hootenanny Singers, where one of the members was 18-year-old Björn Ulvaeus. The Hootenanny Singers instantly became big stars, and Polar turned out to be one of the most successful independent Swedish labels during the following decades.
By the end of the 1960s, Stig and Bengt had formed yet another publishing company called Union Songs together with Björn Ulvaeus and former Hep Stars member Benny Andersson. Stig saw the potential in the Andersson/Ulvaeus songwriting and producing partnership even at this early stage, and had great belief in their talents. A few years later he was proven right, as ABBA became a major worldwide success. Stig contributed many lyrics for early ABBA songs, and was especially adept at coming up with catchy titles.
With his success, he also became a celebrity in his own right. Opinionated and hot-tempered, he became a frequently interviewed figure in the Swedish media world, always ready with a controversial statement for the journalists. His most famous quote stems from a 1972 interview: "People are not as stupid as you think, they are even more stupid."
By the latter half of the 1970s, Stig's main responsibility was to act as ABBA's manager and to find the best way to invest the enormous income generated by the group's success. The preceding years had seen his lyric writing trickle down to a minimum, and by 1980 he had stopped writing lyrics altogether, instead concentrating on being a businessman.
After Stig and the ABBA members had gone their separate ways in the mid-1980s, Sweden Music and Polar continued to flourish, but in 1989 it was announced that Stig was going to sell his company to PolyGram. Stig continued to be involved in the activities of Sweden Music and Polar, and put together several compilations called Stikkan Anderson väljer Polars pärlor ("Stig Anderson Selects The Pearls Of Polar") with hits and other selections from the Polar catalogue.
A full-time workaholic, Stig's lifestyle had taken its toll, and as the 1990s progressed his physical health worsened considerably. On 12th September 1997 Stig Anderson died of a heart attack at the age of 66. It was pointed out several times already during his lifetime that no-one in Sweden knew the music business better than he did. His enormously successful career proves that this is a more than accurate observation.
