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Boney M is a Eurodance and disco group, which was phenomenally successful during the 1970s. The group was created by producer Frank Farian in 1976 and was composed of four West Indian artists working in London, Germany and Netherlands: singers Marcia Barrett and Liz Mitchell, model Maizie Williams and DJ Bobby Farrell.
When Frank Farian first released "Baby Do You Wanna Bump?" in 1974, under the
Boney M name, he did the singing himself (there were very few words), and only when the
song became a hit he decided to hire a team of dancers and vocalists
to 'man' the group. The line-up changed several times; only Maizie Williams was
there from the very beginning.
Foreshadowing Farian's involvement in the Milli Vanilli controversy a decade later, Williams and Farrell sang very little, or not at all, on Boney M's records. The mostly spoken male voice was that of Farian. He finally admitted to this on German television in 2003, saying that Farrell had been chosen for his personality and innovative dancing. (The vocal contributions of Barrett and Williams are not in doubt.)
Rivers of Babylon became the second highest selling single of all time in the UK in 1978 when the B-side Brown girl in the Ring was given extensive airplay on radio. It was, at the time, the only single to sell over two million copies in the UK apart from Mull of Kintyre.
They also achieved a second UK million seller with their version of calypso classic Mary's Boy Child which was previously a million seller for Harry Belafonte. Boney M, with their sensuous tunes and catchy rythms became one of the few western bands that became well-known in the non-European world including Africa, India and South-East Asia. To this day, along with ABBA, they are the most widely known western music acts in these regions.
Other singles include:
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