Boney M.

Boney M. is a vocal group created by German record producer Frank Farian. Originally based in Germany, the four original members of the group's official line-up were Jamaican-born singers Liz Mitchell and Marcia Barrett, 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 different personnel.

History

1970s

German singer-songwriter Frank Farian (real name Franz Reuther) 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 Jamaica-born Claudja Barry. Then Bonnick and Mike left, and Maizie Williams brought in Bobby Farrell, a male exotic dancer from Aruba. Singer Marcia Barrett (also from Jamaica) joined the group, which then went through another change in line-up when Claudja Barry 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, Maizie Williams, Marcia Barrett, and Bobby Farrell.

Ma Baker

"Ma Baker" is a song by German band Boney M., released as a single in 1977. It was the first single of their second album Love for Sale and their third consecutive chart-topper in Germany and their best yet placing in the UK, peaking at no. 2 (only surpassed by Donna Summer's "I Feel Love") although only a minor single in the US (no. 96).

The song

Frank Farian's assistant Hans-Jörg Mayer (aka Reyam) had discovered a popular Tunisian folkloric song, "Sidi Mansour" while on holiday, and rewrote the song into a disco track.

The lyrics by Fred Jay were inspired by the story of legendary 1930s outlaw Ma Barker, although the name was changed into "Ma Baker" because "it sounded better".

With a structure similar to Boney M.'s breakthrough single "Daddy Cool" with the same gimmick percussion, alternating answer-back vocals, a spoken mid-part, the song also opened with a snarling "Freeze, I'm Ma Baker, put your hands in the air and gimme all your money".

Although it has never been officially credited, the voice was done by Linda Blake, the wife of Frank Farian's American friend Bill Swisher who was a soldier in Germany at the time. Bill Swisher also performed the spoken mid-part, announcing a bulletin from the FBI. He was also used on several later Boney M. recordings, including "Rasputin" and "El Lute". Frank Farian re-recorded the song with Milli Vanilli in 1988. Boney M.'s version was remixed the same year, 1993 and again in 1998. The song has been covered a number of times by Banda R-15, Knorkator and others.

Baker

A baker is someone who makes, bakes and sells breads, rolls, biscuits or cookies, and/or crackers using an oven or other concentrated heat source. Cakes and similar foods may also be produced, as the traditional boundaries between what is produced by a baker as opposed to a pastry chef have blurred in recent decades. The place where a baker works is called a bakery.

Origin

The first group of people to bake bread were ancient Egyptians, around 8000 BC. During the Middle Ages, it was common for each landlord to have a bakery, which was actually a public oven; housewives would bring dough that they had prepared to the baker, who would tend the oven and bake them into bread. As time went on, bakers would also sell their own goods, and in that some bakers acted dishonestly, tricks emerged: for example, a baker might have trap door(s) in the oven or other obscured areas, that would allow a hidden small boy or other apprentice to take off some of the dough brought in for baking. Then the dishonest baker would sell bread made with the stolen dough as their own. This practice and others eventually lead to the famous regulation known as Assize of Bread and Ale, which prescribed harsh penalties for bakers that were found cheating their clients or customers. As a safeguard against cheating, under-filled orders, or any appearance of impropriety, bakers commonly began to throw in one more loaf of bread; this tradition now exists in the phrase "baker's dozen", which is 13.