My 88 year old father-in-law watched a programme on Channel 5 last Friday called Greatest Hits of the 70s. It featured the back story behind a number of 70’s mega hits:
- Boney M’s Rivers of Babylon
- 10cc’s I’m Not in Love
- Donna Summer’s I Feel Love
- Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street
- You’re the One That I Want from the musical Grease
- Gloria Gaynor’s disco smash I Will Survive
The first featured track was Rivers of Babylon and told the tale of how two of the members of Boney M never sang on any of the records but had, in fact, been recruited as dancers who mimed along during performances. It also told how Brown Girl in the Ring which was the B side of the single sent the song right back up the charts when DJs flipped the record over and started playing the other side.
Boney M were MASSIVE when I was growing up in the mid 70s. My junior school teacher even transcribed the music for Brown Girl for the Recorder Club to play (massacre) during assemblies and school concerts. The very first album I ever bought was Nightflight to Venus and I was very gratified to find out that it was my super cool best friend at school Alan’s first album purchase too. It turns out that my father-in-law had bought it as well and while watching the programme he thought “I’m sure I used to have a Boney M tape somewhere”.
On Saturday morning he set out to find it and did. Later on he told us that he’d his own private disco in the kitchen, dancing around to Boney M! It really made me smile but I’m hoping that he didn’t attempt the cossack dancing in Rasputin though!
Club 30-80 