Ann-Margret - 1962 - On The Way Up FLAC

Slowly/Heartbreak Hotel/Let Me Go, Lover!/Moon River



Ann-Margret Olsson (born April 28, 1941), known professionally simply as Ann-Margret, is a Swedish-American actress, singer, and dancer.

As an actress, Ann-Margret is best known for her roles in Bye Bye Birdie (1963), Viva Las Vegas (1964), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Carnal Knowledge (1971), Tommy (1975), Grumpy Old Men (1993), and Grumpier Old Men (1995). She has won five Golden Globe Awards and been nominated for two Academy Awards, two Grammy Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and six Emmy Awards.

In 2010, Ann-Margret won her first Emmy Award for her guest appearance on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Her singing and acting careers span five decades, starting in 1961; initially, she was billed as a female version of Elvis Presley. She has a sultry vibrant contralto voice  She had a minor hit in 1961 and a charting album in 1964, and scored a disco hit in 1979. In 2001, she recorded a critically acclaimed gospel album, and an album of Christmas songs from 2004 continues to be available.

Ann-Margret Olsson was born in Valsjöbyn, Jämtland County, the daughter of Anna Regina (née Aronsson) and Carl Gustav Olsson, a native of Örnsköldsvik. She later described Valsjöbyn as a small town of "lumberjacks and farmers high up near the Arctic Circle". Her father worked in the United States during his youth and moved there again in 1942, working with the Johnson Electrical Company, while his wife and daughter stayed behind. Ann-Margret and her mother joined her father in the United States in November 1946, and her father took her to Radio City Music Hall on the day they arrived. They settled in Wilmette, Illinois. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1949.

 Ann-Margret took her first dance lessons at the Marjorie Young School of Dance, showing natural ability from the start, easily mimicking all the steps. Her parents were supportive, and her mother handmade all of her costumes. To support the family, Ann-Margret's mother became a funeral parlor receptionist after her husband suffered a severe injury on his job. While a teenager, Ann-Margret appeared on the Morris B. Sachs Amateur Hour, Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, and Ted Mack's Amateur Hour. She attended New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, and continued to star in theater. In 1959, she enrolled at Northwestern University, where she was a member of the sorority Kappa Alpha Theta, but did not graduate.



As part of a group known as the Suttletones, she performed at the Mist nightclub in Chicago and went to Las Vegas for a promised club date which fell through after the group arrived. They then moved on to Los Angeles, and through agent Georgia Lund, secured club dates in Newport Beach and Reno, Nevada. The group finally arrived at the Dunes in Las Vegas, which also headlined Tony Bennett and Al Hirt at that time. George Burns heard of her performance, and she auditioned for his annual holiday show, in which she and Burns performed a softshoe routine. Variety proclaimed that "George Burns has a gold mine in Ann-Margret ... she has a definite style of her own, which can easily guide her to star status". 

 Ann-Margret began recording for RCA Victor in 1961. Her first RCA Victor recording was "Lost Love" from her debut album And Here She Is: Ann-Margret, produced in Nashville with Chet Atkins on guitar, the Jordanaires (Elvis Presley's backup singers), and the Anita Kerr Singers, with liner notes by mentor George Burns. She had a sexy, throaty contralto singing voice, and RCA Victor attempted to capitalize on the 'female Elvis' comparison by having her record a version of "Heartbreak Hotel" and other songs stylistically similar to Presley's. She scored the minor hit "I Just Don't Understand" (from her second LP), which entered the Billboard Top 40 in the third week of August 1961 and stayed six weeks, peaking at number 17.The song was later covered in live performances by The Beatles and was recorded during a live performance at the BBC. Her only charting album was The Beauty and the Beard (1964), on which she was accompanied by trumpeter Al Hirt. Ann-Margret appeared on The Jack Benny Program in 1961 (season 11, episode 24). She also sang at the Academy Awards presentation in 1962, singing the Oscar-nominated song "Theme from Bachelor in Paradise." Her contract with RCA Victor ended in 1966.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, she had hits on the dance charts, the most successful being 1979's "Love Rush," which peaked at number eight on the disco/dance charts.

In 2001, working with Art Greenhaw, she recorded the album God Is Love: The Gospel Sessions. The album went on to earn a Grammy nomination and a Dove nomination for best album of the year in a gospel category. Her album Ann-Margret's Christmas Carol Collection, also produced and arranged by Greenhaw, was recorded in 2004.