Freeway - Sweden’s most famous female singer

Sweden’s most famous female singer

Can you guess who? She has been given the award called "Rockbjörnen" four years in a row, she is a singer in a very famous band and she has according to the newspapers been through major surgery recently. Of course it is Marie Fredriksson!!!

Marie was born on May 30, 1958 in Össjö a village in the southern part of Sweden. Her full name is Gun-Marie Fredriksson and she is one of Sweden’s most famous female singers, and because of that she has been given the award "Rockbjörnen" four years in a row.

It hasn’t been easy

Although she was a good singer already when she was a little girl her career hasn’t been a

Although she was a good singer already when she was a little girl her career hasn’t been a walk on roses. Marie started at a music school in Skåne and she has written some musicales and played with many different bands, for example "Strul". "Strul" was from the beginning called "Strul pojkarna" and was a band only with guys, but one of the members accidentally heard Marie singing and she became a member. At first she only played the keyboard and was a background singer but after a while she took the step to the leading microphone. But although Marie was a great singer it didn’t go too well and the songs

were a failure. A while after "Strul" was founded they split up. This is some of Marie’s and Roxette’s records

Now Marie was on her own. She had met Per Gessle when she was in the choir of his band "Gyllene Tider". He and a man called Lasse Lindbom gave her the advice to make a solo-career, she took it and it was a hit.

Because Marie was such a good singer and the people already knew her from the time she played with "Strul" her songs just flew right in to the heart of people. After only two singles she was a well known singer. Per now tried to talk Marie in to starting a band with him called Roxette. She heard many different voices saying that she shouldn’t throw away her career on a "falling star", Per Gessle. But luckily Marie didn’t take the advice this time, because Roxette has made many number one hits.

The tour is cancelled

They had planned a big tour this autumn but they cancelled it when Marie was put on the sick list because of a tumour in her head. It was when she fell in her home and got a concussion that they had to X-ray her and discovered something in the back of her head, it was the tumour. According to the newspapers Marie has had the surgery to take away the tumour, but neither Marie’s family nor her manager want to say anything. However the newspaper say that the surgery took about four to seven hours and that all went well.