History
German singer-songwriter Frank Farian (real name Franz) recorded the dance track "Baby Do You Wanna Bump" in December 1974. Farian sang the repeated line "Do you do you wanna bump?" in a deep voice (entirely studio created) as well as performing the high falsetto chorus. When the record was released as a single, it was credited to "Boney M.", a pseudonym Farian had created for himself after watching the Australian detective show Boney. After a slow start, the song became a hit in the Netherlands and Belgium. It was then that Farian decided to hire performers to 'front' the group for TV performances. The Katja Wolfe booking agency found model-turned-singer Maizie Williams (originally from Montserrat) and her Jamaican singer friend Sheyla Bonnick for him, along with a dancer known only as "Mike" for the first gigs. Also during 1975, a girl named Nathalie joined but was soon replaced by Claudja Barry. Then Bonnick and Mike left, and Maizie Williams brought in Bobby Farrell, an exotic male dancer from Aruba. Singer Marcia Barrett (also from Jamaica) joined the group, which then went through another change in line-up when Claudja Barry – tired of merely lip-synching – left in February 1976 to pursue a solo career as a disco singer. Finally Liz Mitchell, former member of the Les Humphries Singers, stepped in. The line-up was finalised with Liz Mitchell (lead singer & front woman) Maizie Williams, Marcia Barrett, and Bobby Farrell.
Read more about this topic: Boney M.
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)