At the age of 13, Lyngstad gained her first job as a dance band and schlager singer in 1958, with the Evald Ek's Orchestra. Evald Ek himself remembers: "It was hard to believe, such a young person could sing that well. She was so easy to rehearse with and she was never shy onstage. The only thing I taught her was to sing out. In those days, she had a tendency of holding back her voice a little." With the Evald Eks Orchestra, the 13-year-old Lyngstad, performed every weekend in front of a dancing audience. The sets often lasted up to five hours. The songs she liked most to sing were the evergreens; "All of Me", "Night and Day" and "Begin the Beguine". To advance and develop, she also started to take singing lessons with opera tenor, Folke Andersson. Later, she teamed up with a 15-piece 'Bengt Sandlunds Bigband', who performed a jazz repertoire covering Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington and Count Basie; her vocal idols being Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee. In 1963, she was the vocalist with the 'Gunnar Sandevarn Trio' before forming her own band, the Anni-Frid Four. These groups all contained her husband, Ragnar Fredriksson.