History Music / BoneyM

Bobby Farrell died of heart failure at age 61 on the morning of December 30, 2010 in a hotel in UsefulNotes/SaintPetersburg, Russia... the same date and city of death as UsefulNotes/GrigoriRasputin 94 years earlier, oddly enough.

Hugely popular in Europe, they were well known for their hit singles "Daddy Cool", "Ma Baker", "Belfast", "Sunny", "Rasputin", "Mary's Boy Child - Oh My Lord" and "Rivers of Babylon" (their only American hit). After the band initially dissolved in 1986, Farian would go on to form Music/MilliVanilli, which similarly used group members to front for vocals recorded by studio singers.

Boney M. (the period ''is'' officially part of the name) was a West German {{Disco}} group formed in Munich in the mid-1970s by producer Frank Farian. Initially a studio project with Farian himself on lead vocals, eventually he drafted four performers from UsefulNotes/TheCaribbean to make live appearances and appear on the album covers. Two of them, Marcia Barrett and Liz Mitchell, also handled vocals on the studio recordings, but Maizie Williams and Bobby Farrell were only used in live appearances, while Farian was still the male voice of the group's records.

-->"Brown Girl in the Ring"

* TheQueenpin: "Ma Baker" was based on sensationalised news reports of Kate "Ma" Barker being the ringleader of her crime syndicate during UsefulNotes/TheProhibition.

Bobby Farrell died of heart failure at age 61 on the morning of December 30, 2010 in a hotel in UsefulNotes/SaintPetersburg, Russia... the same date and city of death as UsefulNotes/GrigoriRasputin, oddly enough.