Thursday, March 22, 2001Thursday, March 22, 2001

I remember Rasputin
Boney M are back from disco dustbin
By ERROL NAZARETH -- Toronto Sun
Time to share a past indiscretion.

When I was 13 and growing up in the Middle East, I clearly remember nagging my
Pops to buy me a copy of Nightflight To Venus, one of Boney M's biggest-selling
albums. I didn't get the album, but I did end up with a poster and an awful dub
of the disc on cassette.

That didn't stop me from playing the hell out of it.

I can hear those who regularly read my columns on hip-hop, world music, jazz
and other styles close to my heart having a good laugh. It's cool. I can deal
with it.

You can imagine my incredulity when I heard the German-based disco giants were
coming to perform at the Air Canada Centre on Monday. More unbelievable is the
fact that it's the first time the group -- who've performed in India and the
Middle East -- are playing North America.

"It's just the way things worked out," Jamaica-born Liz Mitchell, the group's
only original member still in the group, says from her home outside London,
England. "At that time, none of us sort of felt we needed to go to America and
no shows were ever put together."

Mystery has always surrounded the group, formed in Germany in 1976 by writer
and producer Frank Farian, the same man who gave us Milli Vanilli. Farian had
reworked Al Capone, a song by Prince Buster, the Jamaican ska legend, and called
it Do You Wanna Bump?

It created a buzz, and Farian needed to put faces to the music, so that's how
Boney M was born.

Comprised of Marcia Barrett, Liz Mitchell, Maizie Williams and Bobby Farrell,
the group, which had a penchant for extravagant costumes, dominated the European
charts throughout the late '70s and '80s with several hits like Rasputin and By
The Rivers Of Babylon.

So, they're back. Or are they?

"I was trying to promote a solo record I'd made and the fans in Germany freaked
out because they'd never heard me sing a capella. I got really good press and
the record company asked me to promote some of the Boney M stuff on my shows,
which is what I did," Mitchell says.

"That was a mistake," she says with a laugh. "Because suddenly that became the
rebirth of Boney M rather that what I'd originally started out doing. The reason
I didn't want to do it as Boney M is it's very difficult to take away from what
the others brought to the group."

But the current group -- Patricia Foster, Carol Grey, Tony Ashcroft and a
nine-piece band -- is being called Boney M.

"I do not try to introduce them as Boney M," Mitchell says. "All they're doing
is helping me reproduce the music live on stage."

Who said returns can't be a dodgy proposition?

Mitchell admits the group was overwhelmed by the huge response to its records.
But she's quick to attribute its success to a higher power.

"I am a born-again Christian and was one when I joined Boney M. I tried very
hard to get Farian to do gospel music, but he was more interested in dance
music. But, on every album, there was one song that was about the faith.

"I believe that God played a role in our career, because I can't say Farian was
as smart as people thought he was," she says. "Everything just fell perfectly
into place."

Given Mitchell's religious convictions, I wonder how challenging it was to
balance them with the revealing outfits she sported back then. One album cover
featured them with nary a stitch.

She laughs heartily at the question.

"I must say that being a born-again Christian in this business is hard because
you're judged by every little thing you do," Mitchell says. "People push you
because you're supposed to be full of faith and full of strength and able to
take on any struggle.

"I'm pleased that you asked that question, because the truth is that it was not
easy for me being a young Christian in the business. I clung to my faith very
strongly between '76 and '78 and was ridiculed by everybody around me, and
between '82 and '85 my faith went completely haywire.

"Now, I'm so much more comfortable in my faith and I can handle situations so
much better." By ERROL NAZARETH -- Toronto Sun



 

Liz Mitchell leads Boney M through a torturous set of their '70s hits at the Air
Canada
Centre last night. -- Ken Kerr, SUN