By: Simon Edge. Daily Express UK, MONDAY DECEMBER 17, 2001
The other diners are blissfully unaware that there is a pop giant in their midst. The elegant 49-year-old woman picking at her dessert was the lead vocalist of the only band that features twice in the UK Top 10 of all time. She was as big as Agnetha or Anni-Frid from Abba. But allthough everyone can identify the members of Abba, nobody gives Liz Mitchell a second glance.
Liz who? Exactly. Hardly a household name. But if we heard her sing “Brown Girl In The Ring”, how many of us could stop ourselves going “Tra-la-la-la-la”? And just need to whisper the words “By the rivers of Babylon” to get a chorus of “there we sat down” from people who weren’t even born in the Seventies.Today is the 25th anniversary of the release of Boney M.’s first UK hit single “Daddy Cool”. Boney M. hits are still a surefire way of filling a dance floor and yet the members of the band seem destined for obscurity.
“We earned a place in the Guiness Book Of Records and we earned a place in people’s lives, but no one knows my name. I hope you can identify my voice if you listen to the music of Boney M., because that’s all I have.“ says Liz.
In fact, the fans who bought 80 million Boney M. records would be hard pressed to name a single member. This was no accident - it was what the record company wanted. You won’t find any of them listed on their first three albums, nor on the Greatest Hits compilation out this Christmas, which Mitchell is helping to promote, nor on the re-release of “Daddy Cool” by Hear’Say hitmakers Jewel & Stone, which is out today. It is an omission that goes to the heart of one of the most sorriest stories in pop, which left the original four members estranged from one another and from the Svengali producer who made them the stars with no name.
If you know that Ra-Ra Rasputin was Russia’s greatest love machine, you prabably also think you know two things about Boney M.: they were all German and they mimed. Yet both are myths. The first is easily made to rest. The world’s first manufactured pop band was assembled by German producer Frank Farian and signed to a German label. Yet Liz was born in Jamaica in 1952, came to the UK as a child and grew up in North West London; Marcia Barrett came to Brittain from Jamaica; Maizie Williams was from Monserrat; and Bobby Farrell was from the Dutch speaking island of Aruba.
For Liz, the myth about miming is far more damaging. “How do you think I feel, knowing that I was standing on my feet from 11 o’ clock in the morning until sometimes three o’ clock the following morning, tracking my voice and getting it synchronised? The rumour got around that we all mimed because credit was given to the musicians, to Frank Farian, to the engineers, even to the helpers. The actual people who did the singing, which is Marcia Barrett and myself, Liz Mitchell,” she laughes nervously, as if she’s still unsure wether I know her name, “didn’t get any credit”.
The name Boney M. was devised by Farian for a dance track called “Baby Do You Wanna Bump” which he released on his own in 1975. Four dancers were hired for press and TV appearances. They did little more than pose for photographs but Farian’s record company wanted him to put together a permanent band, so a new line up was assembled. It consisted of Williams, Barrett, Farrell and another woman (LMFC: Claudja Barry)
Liz, who was a member of a gospel group called the Les Humphries Singers, was asked to fill the vacancy when the fourth member dropped out. “I was going to do three shows,” she recalls, “The Les Humphries Singers were big in Europe at the time which meant I was a star to Frank Farian. He said, ‘join us for a year and if it doesn’t work, the deal is off.’ That was basically how I got to be there”.
It was only when Liz Mitchell reached the recording studio that she realised that there was an imbalance in the band. “I didn’t care that I was a star and the others were not known at all. That was irrilevant to me. But when we started recording the songs, I felt that two of us could not sing. This was difficult, because you don’t want to hurt people’s feelings. The way around that was to have everybody do their version and eliminate what couldn’t be used. Bobby did what he had to do, they couldn’t use it, and it was scrapped. It was the same with Maizie. Marcia could sing, but I ended up singing most of the stuff.”
As the band surged into the British and European charts with “Daddy Cool” and “Sunny”, the public had no way of knowing who was doing what. “If I was singing “Sunny”, people saw me singing”, says Liz, “But Maizie and Marcia would also be there, so the cameras would pan on them like they were singing, too”.
It was the same with “Rivers Of Babylon” which, with it’s chart topping B-side “Brown Girl In The Ring”, remains Britains Number Five single of all time. “You heard maybe 20 voices behind the lead voice, but all those 20 voices were mine. Marcia did sing. She was the lead singer on “Belfast”, and at least two tracks on every album. But you never heard Bobby’s voice until the last album we recorded in 1985. What were supposed to be his solo tracks were all done by Frank Farian.”
Liz has a theory about why there was no singing credits; “People would know that I was the sole energy on the vocal side of the music and that terrified the record company and Frank Farian.” (She never refers him as Frank, but always by his full name.) “It was a secret for a very long time and I was insulted for that secret for a very long time.”
The band members also got short shrift when they wanted more money. Like many youngsters starting out in pop, they had accepted the first deal they were offered. They were in a weaker position because they could not speak German.
She recalls: “We were treated without any consideration whatever. We appear twice in the all time Top 10, with “Rivers Of Babylon” and “Mary’s Boy Child”. Elton John is only there once, but he’s a millionaire and I am not.
That tells you an awfull lot. Frank Farian became very wealthy. The record companies became very wealthy and the four of us got the same deal wether I sang the songs or not. Bobby and Maizie have blown away every penny, which I wouldn’t say was an awflul lot compared to the kind of money Boney M. made.” So what precisely was their deal? “I’ve kept it a secret for 25 years and you’re going to be the first person to know that Boney M. received nine per cent. But nine per cent of what, I ask myself. I believe we receieved nine per cent of whatever Frank Farian received and that would have given us very little compared to the whole of what Boney M. should have received.“
In public, the band went from strength to strength. In 1978, they were presented to the Queen and became the first Western group to perform in the USSR, but internal tension was never far from surface.
“I was a threat to everyone and I was quite hated,” says Liz, “I remember the press in Moscow asking, ‘Who is the lead singer of Rivers Of Babylon?’ and they all stepped in front of me and said: ‘We all are.’ I used to weep a lot.”
The band eventually unravelled in the mid-Eighties, Farrell was sacked after a string of incidents where he did not turn up to TV engagements. “People had to climb ladders to get Bobby out hotel rooms, so he got fired. We replaced him with Reggie Tsiboe, who could sing, but couldn’t dance,” she says, giggling. “But fans wanted a dancer, because that’s really the role that Bobby played.” The end came shortly afterwards.
Liz has recorded solo albums and tours as Boney M. featuring Liz Mitchell. Williams and Farrell also tour as mime acts, which Liz believes feeds the myth that Boney M. were fake performers. “I do not want the history books to read that Boney M. were not authentic,” she says. “Bobby and Maizie don’t understand that. They were the dancers, and that’s what they should say to people. But Maizie pretends to be me. She goes round saying she’s the lead singer of Boney M.”
The only money Liz will receive from the Greatest Hits album is calculated under the royalty formula agreed in 1976. By promoting it, she is helping Farian and the record company even get richer. But she is speaking out, she says, to nail the myths about Boney M. - and try to end her anonymity.
“I’m doing this because it is my voice. I am proud of the music. I never recorded the music because I wanted to be a millionaire. I recorded it because I love music. The money did come, only it was stolen. But I’m not the first one that’s been robbed in show business.”
