About Bea Swedien
Bea Swedien has lived an extraordinary life at the crossroads of music, culture, and history. Growing up with her Swedish-American family amongst the Naga tribes in a remote region of Northeast India, she was surrounded by tigers, monsoons, and the distant echoes of World War II. The youngest of five children, she studied her early lessons on the verandah of her family’s bungalow, with books shipped from America, before attending boarding school in the Himalayan foothills. These formative years gave her a spirit of resilience, curiosity, and storytelling that would carry her through the rest of her life.
In 1953, Bea married Bruce Swedien, a young sound engineer with big dreams who would go on to become a Grammy-winning legend. Their partnership became one of love, music, and adventure, spanning nearly seven decades. Together, they built a remarkable life — first in Minneapolis, then Chicago, and ultimately Los Angeles and Florida — as Bruce rose to international fame as one of the most innovative recording engineers in the world. He worked with Quincy Jones, Barbra Streisand, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Jennifer Lopez, and many others, and became best known as Michael Jackson’s engineer on six groundbreaking albums including the record-shattering Thriller.
Through it all, Bea was there — not only as Bruce’s wife but as a studio wife. She witnessed history being made in the control room, at the mixing desk, and on Grammy red carpets. She was known in studios around the world for her warmth, humor, and famous recipes — particularly her Swedish meatballs and sugar cookies that “stopped the tape” and left even Quincy Jones exclaiming, “So good they make you wanna hurt yourself!”
Bea’s writing career began later in life, first with Under the Red Blanket, her vivid memoir of growing up in India. In her newest book, My Life as a Studio Wife: A Lifetime of Love and Music with Bruce Swedien, Bea offers an intimate and often witty inside look at her extraordinary marriage and the world of recording. Their life together was a dazzling whirlwind of music, world travel, Swedishness, horses, Great Danes, big boats, family, friends, love, and adventure. As Quincy Jones, who wrote the foreword, said: “This book gives an insight into one of the most irrepressible, high-spirited people I know.”
Now in her nineties and living in Florida, Bea remains as spirited and engaging as ever — a natural storyteller whose life has bridged continents, cultures, and creative worlds. From her childhood in India to evenings spent alongside Michael Jackson in the studio, Bea Swedien’s story is one of love, history, and the magic of music.
Bea Swedien is also the author of Under the Red Blanket, MX Publishing 2011.
From Amazon: Under The Red Blanket is a memoir of a Swedish-American family living in the remote area of North East India among headhunting tribes. The book opens with the father of Bea, Bengt Anderson, immigrating to the United States from Sweden on the advice of his aunt Hedda, who worked as a cook for the Roosevelt family at their home in Hyde Park, New York. He later moved to Minnesota where he met and married Edna Michaelson. Soon after, they left the US to spend twenty-nine years living in India. The story relates the trials and tribulations of life in the jungle. It includes stories of life under the British Raj, World War II and the Japanese invasion into India. The book also describes the horrors witnessed during the separation of India and Pakistan in 1947.