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Boney M. are a eurodisco group that specialises in R&B, reggae, disco and funk, created by German record producer Frank Farian, who was the group's primary songwriter. Originally based in West Germany, the four original members of the group's official line-up were Liz Mitchell and Marcia Barrett from Jamaica, Maizie Williams from Montserrat, and Bobby Farrell from Aruba. The group was formed in 1976 and achieved popularity during the disco era of the late 1970s. Since the 1980s, various line-ups of the band have performed with differing personnel.
Ska is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat. It was developed in Jamaica in the 1960s when Stranger Cole, Prince Buster, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, and Duke Reid formed sound systems to play American rhythm and blues and then began recording their own songs. In the early 1960s, ska was the dominant music genre of Jamaica and was popular with British mods and with many skinheads.
Madness are an English ska and pop band from Camden Town, north west London, who formed in 1976. One of the most prominent bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s two-tone ska revival, they continue to perform with six of the seven members of their original line-up. Madness's most successful period was from 1980 to 1986, when the band's songs spent a total of 214 weeks on the UK Singles Chart.
Cecil Bustamente Campbell, known professionally as Prince Buster, was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and producer. The records he released in the 1960s influenced and shaped the course of Jamaican contemporary music and created a legacy of work that would be drawn upon later by reggae and ska artists.
Franz Reuther, known professionally as Frank Farian, was a German record producer and singer who founded the 1970s disco-pop group Boney M., the Latin pop band No Mercy, and the pop band Milli Vanilli. He frequently created vocal groups in which the publicised members merely lip-synced to songs sung by session members. Farian owned the record label MCI and several subsidiaries. Over the course of his career, Farian sold over 850 million records and earned 800 gold and platinum certifications.
Elizabeth Rebecca Pemberton-Mitchell is a Jamaican-British singer, best known as one of the original singers of the 1970s disco/reggae band Boney M.
Malaika Nakupenda Malaika is a Swahili song written by Tanzanian artist, Adam Salim in 1945 and recorded for the first time by a Kenyan musician, Fadhili Williams. This song is possibly the most famous of all Swahili love songs in Tanzania, Kenya and the entire East Africa, as well as being one of the most widely known of all Swahili songs in the world. Malaika in this context means "angel" in Swahili, and this word has always been used by the Swahili speakers to refer to a beautiful girl.
Maizie Ursula Williams is a British model, dancer and singer who became one of the original members of the successful 1970s disco music group Boney M. Though she did not sing on the studio recordings of their songs, she did perform live and subsequently established an independent career as a singer.
Claudja Barry is a Jamaican-born Canadian singer. Her successful songs were "Down and Counting", "Boogie Woogie Dancin' Shoes", "Dancing Fever", and others. As an actress, she is known for appearing in the European versions of stage musicals AC/DC and Catch My Soul.
Marcia Barrett is a Jamaican-British singer and one of the original singers with the vocal group Boney M.
"Sunny" is a soul jazz standard written by the American singer and songwriter Bobby Hebb in 1963. It is one of the most performed and recorded popular songs, with hundreds of versions released and its chord progression influencing later songs. BMI rates "Sunny" No. 25 in its "Top 100 songs of the century".
Blue Beat Records is an English record label that released Jamaican rhythm and blues (R&B) and ska music in the 1960s and later decades. Its reputation led to the use of the word bluebeat as a generic term to describe all styles of early Jamaican pop music, including music by artists not associated with the record label.
"One Step Beyond" is a tune written by Jamaican ska singer Prince Buster as a B-side for his 1964 single "Al Capone". It was covered by British band Madness for their debut studio album of the same name (1979). Although Buster's version was mostly instrumental except for the song title shouted for a few times, the Madness version features a spoken intro by Chas Smash and a barely audible but insistent background chant of "here we go!". The spoken line, "Don't watch that, watch this", in the intro is from another Prince Buster song, "Scorcher" — and is also used at the start of Dave and Ansell Collins' "Funky Funky Reggae" — whilst the next line "This is a heavy heavy monster sound" is taken from another Dave and Ansell Collins song, "Monkey Spanner". The first of those also became a trademark during the early promos of MTV, where the video was in heavy rotation.
Take the Heat off Me is the debut album by Euro-Caribbean group Boney M. The album became a major seller in Europe, specifically in the Nordic countries, but in the U.S. the album just missed the album chart. Tracks include the hits "Daddy Cool", "Sunny" and the debut single "Baby Do You Wanna Bump".
"Baby Do You Wanna Bump" is a song recorded by German record producer Frank Farian under the name Boney M., and included on the group's 1976 debut album Take the Heat off Me. Released as the first Boney M. single, it became a minor hit in the Netherlands and Belgium, prompting Farian to create a proper group to promote his studio project. In the United Kingdom, the single was released by Creole Records, but went unnoticed.
"Kalimba de Luna" is a 1982 single by Italian musician and drummer Tony Esposito. It was written by Esposito with his long-time collaborator Remo Licastro, pianist Giuseppe "Joe" Amoruso, keyboardist Mauro Malavasi and vocalist Gianluigi Di Franco. It was taken from Esposito's album Il grande esploratore. "Kalimba de Luna" was a European success and reached no. 12 in the Austrian chart, no. 6 in the Swiss charts and no. 14 in the Italian charts.
It's Burke's Law (Jamaica Ska Explosion) is an album from 1965 by the Prince Buster All Stars. The album includes "Al Capone", one of Prince Buster's signature songs.
The discography of German disco group Boney M. includes 8 studio albums, 50 singles, and numerous compilation albums.
One Step Beyond. .. is the debut studio album by the British ska-pop group Madness, released by Stiff Records. Recorded and mixed in about three weeks, the album peaked at number two and remained on the UK Albums Chart for more than a year. The album has received much critical praise. It was ranked 90th in a 2005 survey held by British television station Channel 4 to determine the 100 greatest albums of all time.
"Gangsters" is the first single by the English ska group the Specials.
References
- ↑ "Al Capone". www.discogs.com. Retrieved 13 May 2014.
- ↑ "Al Capone". 2-tone.info. Retrieved 14 May 2014.
- ↑ "Prince Buster". www.officialcharts.com. Retrieved 14 May 2014.
- ↑ "The Oral History of 2 Tone". Spin Magazine. October 2009.
- ↑ Hebdige, Dick (2003). Cut 'n' Mix: Culture, Identity and Caribbean Music. Routledge. ISBN 1134931042.
- ↑ Hung, Steffen. "Boney M. - Baby Do You Wanna Bump". hitparade.ch. Retrieved 8 November 2020.
- ↑ "Boney M. - Baby Do You Wanna Bump (pt. 1)". 45cat. Retrieved 8 November 2020.
- ↑ "Al Capone". www.allmusic.com. Retrieved 13 May 2014.
- ↑ Sturges, Fiona (5 November 1999). "Pick of the Day: Radio". The Independent. Archived from the original on 13 May 2014. Retrieved 13 May 2014– via HighBeam Research.