Written by: Frank Farian
Released: 1977
US Charts: #96
UK Charts: #2
Other Charts: #1 (Germany), #1 (Sweden), #1 (The Netherlands)
One of the forgotten bands from the disco era of the late 70s is Boney M and this is probably because they never had substantial commercial success in the United States. Outside of the US, they were huge international stars, all across Europe, the Soviet Union and all across Asia. For some unknown reason, they were never able to break the American market despite being in my opinion, one of the best disco groups of all time. “Ma Baker” was one of their biggest hits.
Boney M was Frank Farian’s first music project before his prominent fall from grace in the wake of the Milli Vanilli lip-syncing scandal in the late 80’s. Not surprisingly, Boney M worked the same way. Farian surprised himself in 1974 when he achieved a hit single in the Netherlands under the name Boney M. In order to capitalize on this success, he needed people to front and promote his newly-formed band.
As a result, he recruited 4 photogenetic “singers” from Afro-Caribbean background (3 female and a male) to lipsync the songs he would mainly record from his studio. People did know that Boney M was mainly a lip syncing group, however, since it was common practice in the disco era, it was tolerated and accepted as the norm. This allowed the group to become very successful over a 10 year period, especially outside the West.
The tune of “Ma Baker” is not original as it was copied from a classic Tunisian folkloric song called Sidi Mansur. This was subsequently rewritten as a disco tune and incorporated spoken parts at the beginning of the song and in the middle. Farian originally envisaged to call this song Ma Barker, after the legendary outlaw from the 1930s. However, he changed it to Ma Baker because “it sounded better” even though the lyrics are about Ma Barker.
“Ma Baker” is a classic disco tune to dance to from Boney M. Enjoy!
Lyrics can be accessed here.
Chords can be accessed here.
Feel free to comment on this song and/or my review below.
