German record producer Frank Farian dies at 82
German record producer Frank Farian has died at the age of 82. Farian made his mark on the music scene creating the 70’s disco stars Boney M, and later went onto to create 80’s chart toppers Milli Vanilli and Latin pop band No Mercy.
Farian passed away in Miami Florida. While his career saw him bring a string of hits to the charts over the decades, it was also revealed that he often used session singers to record the hit songs, and then got good looking artists to lip-synch in live performances and pass the work off as their own.
While Bobby Farrell was out the front of Boney M singing hits like Rivers of Babylon, Brown Girl in the Ring, Ma Baker and Daddy Cool. The voice people heard was actually Farian’s.
In the 1980s Farian created Milli Vanilli, they topped the charts with songs including Girl You Know It’s True, Don’t Forget My Number and Blame it on The Rain.
But when a backing track became stuck during a ‘live’ performance people realised that the duo made up of Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus were not singing live, and soon it came out that they didn’t even actually sing on their records. The voices all belonged to session musicians. The band’s career came to a grinding halt, and they were forced to return their Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
Farian’s career saw him create other acts including La Bouche who had hits in the 90’s with Be My Lover and Sweet Dreams. He also created No Mercy who are remembered for their version of Where Do You Go?
70’s singer Melanie is remembered for Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)
Melanie, whose full name was Melanie Anne Safka-Schekeryk, is best known for her early 70’s hits Look What They’ve Done to My Song Ma and Lay Down (Candles in the Rain). She passed away on January 23rd at the age of 76.
In the late 1960’s Melanie got her start playing in coffee houses in New York’s Greenwich Village. Soon she had a record contract and began to score hits in Europe and build up a fan base.
She was sone of only three solo women to perform at Woodstock in 1969, and as new decade began, she found chart success in the USA. Laydown (Candles in the Rain). The song made it number three on the Australian charts in 1970, and later was covered by Australian singer Max Sharam.
Melanie’s other huge hit came in 1972. Brand New Key topped the Australian and Canadian charts. In some places the song was banned from radio accused of having secret messages about sex – but Melanie always said people were reading too much into it.
Melanie continued performing, she appeared on Jool’s Annual Hootenanny on UK television in 2019. At the time of her passing she had reportedly been working on a new album of covers.
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