Boney M
Boney M is a Eurodance and disco group, which was phenomenally successful during the 1970s. The group was created by Frank Farian in 1976 and was composed of four West Indian artists working in London, Germany and Netherlands (Marcia Barrett, Liz Mitchell, Maizie Williams and Bobby Farrell).
An urban legend says that when Frank Farian
first released the "Baby Do You Wanna Bump?" song, in 1974, under the
Boney M name, he did the singing himself, and that only when the
song became a hit he decided to hire a team of dancers and vocalists
to 'man' the group. The team has evolved before achieving the
definitive well-known composition; only Maizie Williams has been
there from the very beginning.
The story is most probably true given that:
- the song does not really contain lyrics, just a male voice repeating either the title or separate words and letters from it periodically
- the vocalist obviously sings one octave below his real voice range
- the background chorus is very generic
- the song is credited to Zambi and published by Intro, unlike any other Boney M song
- Maizie Williams was initially just a model and beauty queen
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 Boychild which was previously a million seller for Harry Belafonte.
Other singles include:
