One thing most of the women in my life have had in common is a defiant and open fondness of Boney M. This month I spent $28 on a sealed 2017 copy of their 1981 Christmas album because my partner loves it, and them. Listening to it last night with her, a few things occurred to me. First, and it’s probably because of films like Boogie Nights, but I sense a weird darkness to their music. A sort of glittery cocaine disco-era thing. The other thought I had: I don’t know shit about these people beyond the kind of familiarity which comes from repeated exposure to their hits. And that kind of stuff only creates impressions. I wanted to see if the group I imagined was anything like the real deal. So let’s examine the Boney ones.
For starters, what you’re hearing is not what you’re seeing. Two of the four members of Boney M. — Maizie Williams and Bobby Farrell — never sang a note on any of the records. Maybe this won’t be such a surprise when you learn the group was put together by German producer Frank Farian, the same guy who created Milli Vanilli. The duo of Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus won a Grammy for Best New Artist before it was widely known they were not the actual singers on their 1989 hit album. In fact, some of the songs were recorded before Farian had even chosen Rob and Fab to appear as Milli Vanilli. The 1990 controversy must have come as a surprise to Farian, since nobody cared when he did the same thing with Boney M. a decade earlier.
It all started in late 1974 when Farian cut a track called Baby Do You Want To Do The Bump, featuring him on all the vocals. He decided not to use his real name, instead opting for a stage name based on an Australian TV show he’d watched one recent evening. The show was called Boney and was about Det. Insp. Napoleon “Boney” Bonaparte — who had a white European dad and an Australian Aboriginal mom.
I guess Boney M. just sounds better than Boney F., so that’s the name that graced the 1975 single. He quickly recruited a group to be Boney M., even though it was mostly him. Those folks were vocalists Liz Mitchell and Marcia Barrett from Jamaica, along with Bobby Farrell from Aruba and dancer Maizie Williams from Montserrat.
Slowly but surely, the song caught on in parts of Europe. So, since he had a group in place, Farian set about cutting a Boney M. album. Take The Heat Off Me came out in 1976 and featured only the vocals of Mitchell, Barrett and Farian. They did try some tracks with Williams and Farrell singing, but neither were right for the songs, apparently. The pair did provide backing vocals for live performances, but even those were buried in a chorus of additional touring vocalists.
So the Boney M. sound was born — the tight, thin, slightly funky disco tracks about a wide range of inspirations like Russian mystic Rasputin, crime family matriarch Ma Barker, and Jesus. But they sometimes included some rather baffling cover songs, like Have You Ever Seen The Rain and King Of The Road. I actually rather like their disco cover of Bob Marley’s No Woman No Cry, which is one of the songs Farrell fruitlessly attempted to sing.
That first album wasn’t an immediate hit. The group played disco clubs and even rural fairs to try and gain exposure. Finally, a late-night appearance on German TV sent their single Daddy Cool to the top of the charts there. Then everything just exploded. Their followup single (a cover of Sunny) was a hit, just as Daddy Cool jumped onto charts all across Europe.
The followup album Love For Sale came out in May, 1977 featuring the foursome half naked in skimpy, disco-sexy actionwear and entangled in chains. In Canada and the States, the tamer rear-cover image was used. Two more hits graced this album before the group put out their monster record Nightflight To Venus in 1978. The cover art seems to suggest they got to the second planet from the sun, suspended on a rope.
The album has three international hits — Rasputin, Brown Girl In The Ring and (yet another Marley cover) Rivers Of Babylon. Just as the album’s popularity was beginning to wane, Boney M. issued the Christmas single Mary’s Boy Child/Oh My Lord. This little record sold nearly two million copies in the U.K. alone.
They would never have the same success with singles again, but their 1980 Greatest Hits and the 1981 Christmas records were HUGE sellers. Then came another 1981 album, Boonoonoonoos, after which Farrell quit, which made touring difficult. The album didn’t crack the top 100 in the U.K. after a trio of No. 1 albums. Farrell was eventually replaced with Reggie Tsiboe, but the shine was gone. Even when he returned a few years later, the band could only manage to get the odd single into the charts in a few European countries. It was over.
So where are they now? Well, Farina is 82 and lives in Miami — likely doing quite well from royalties. Mitchell is 71 and lives in Reading. She managed to score a record deal in the late ’80s due to the popularity of a Boney M. remix best-of album. She is now a born-again Christian and tours as Boney M. featuring Liz Mitchell.
Barrett, 75, hasn’t been involved in any Boney M. projects since 1989. Her role was constantly reduced, and she was forbidden from working with other artists and producers (including Eddy “Electric Avenue” Grant) due to her contractual obligations. She lives in Berlin with her husband, who plays guitar with Grant. She put out a few solo albums and also tours as Boney M.
Williams is 72 and still tours. She put out a solo album in 2006 and does covers of Boney M. songs, including Daddy Cool and Sunny, even though she never sang on the records.
Farrell also never sang on the records, but did perform as Bobby Farrell’s Boney M. in the years following the split. His daughter says her father signed away his royalties to Farina and struggled financially. He lived in Amsterdam for many years, but died of heart failure in a Moscow hotel on Dec. 30, 2010 — the same day as Rasputin, exactly 94 years later.
There was a cat who really was gone.
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Area Resident is an Ottawa-based journalist, recording artist, music collector and re-seller. Hear (and buy) his music on Bandcamp, email him HERE, follow him on Instagram and check him out on Discogs.
