#5: Sunny by Boney M

City: Sept-Iles, PQ
Radio Station: CKCN
Peak Month: June 1977
Peak Position in Sept-Iles ~ #8
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on the Austrian pop chart – #1
Peak Position on the Belgian pop chart – #1
Peak Position on the Dutch pop chart = #1
Peak Position on the French pop chart – #1
Peak Position on the West German pop chart – #1
Peak Position on the Swiss pop chart – #2
Peak Position on the British pop chart – #3
Peak Position on the Irish pop chart – #4
Peak Position on the Norwegian pop chart – #4
Peak Position on the Finnish pop chart – #6

Franz Reuther was born in 1941 in Kirn, Germany, in the Rheinland-Pfalz region bordering France. After graduating from school, he began to work as a cook. But in 1967 he released a single credited to Frank Farian. In 1974 he wrote a song titled “Baby Do You Wanna Bump”. In 1975 the single was released under the pseudonym Boney M. He got Marcia Barrett and Liz Mitchell to sing vocals for the debut Boney M. album. Barrett was born in Saint Catherine Parish in Jamaica in 1948. She moved to England in 1963 with her parents. In the late 60s, Barrett moved to West Germany and sang with Czechoslovakian singer Karel Gott who was known as “the Golden Voice of Prague.” Gott had three Top Ten albums in Germany between 1968 and 1971. Barrett also toured with the band of German singer Rex Gildo. After signing with a West German record label in 1971, Marcia Barrett toured with her German-language covers of “Son Of A Preacher Man” and “Oh Happy Day”.

In 1975 Marcia Barrett was one of a group of models and dancers, to make discothèque and television performances of “Baby Do You Wanna Bump”. Another one of the dancers in video and live performances of the song was Claudja Barry. When Barry left to go solo in 1976, at Marcia Barrett’s suggestion, she was replaced by Liz Mitchell. In 1952 Elizabeth Rebecca Mitchell was born in Clarendon, Jamaica. Her family moved to England in 1963. She auditioned for the Shaftesbury Theatre production of Hair that opened in 1968, but was not chosen. Mitchell moved to West Germany and replaced Donna Summer in the Munich production of Hair. In 1976 she was part of the Les Humphries Singers who represented West Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest, performing “Sing Sang Song”.

In addition to Farian, Barrett and Mitchell providing vocals in the recording studio there were other members of Boney M. These were Maizie Ursula Williams and Bobby Farrell. Williams was born in Birmingham, England, in 1951. She started to work as a model, and in 1973 won England’s  Miss Black Beautiful contest. From there, she fronted a band named Black Beautiful People. After moving to West Germany, she was approached in a restaurant in 1975 by a talent agent. Williams was asked if she was interested in becoming a member of a new disco group called Boney M. Williams recalls the agent asked her if she could sing. Williams later recalled in an interview she had been told off by her brother Billy: “You have a terrible voice. Better keep working as a walking clothes-hanger.” But, since Williams was being asked only to dance and mime the words for TV performances and music videos, singing was actually not a necessary skill. So she said “yes.”

Roberto Alfonso Farrell was born in the Dutch Caribbean island of Arbua in 1949. At the age of 15 he became a sailor and moved to Norway at the age of 17. After working as a DJ in the Netherlands and West Germany, in 1976 he was hired to be the lone male dancer, lip-synching lyrics for Boney M. In 1976 Boney M. released “Daddy Cool”.

Later in 1976, Boney M. recorded a cover of the 1966 Bobby Hebb tune “Sunny”.

“Sunny” was written by Bobby Hebb. Born Robert Von Hebb, “Bobby” Hebb was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1938. His parents, William and Olivia Hebb, were both blind musicians. When “Bobby” was just three years old he performed on stage in The Jerry Jackson Revue of 1942, which took place in 1941. Hebb’s older brother Harold “Hal” introduced him to the audience at the Bijou Theatre. Over the next three years before he entered elementary school, and through his school years, Bobby Hebb and his brother “Hal” appeared at various Nashville nightclubs. These included The Hollywood Palm, Eva Thompson Jones Dance Studio and The Paradise Club. Their appearances were backed by William Hebb on trombone and guitar, and Olivia Hebb on both piano and guitar. The brothers sang “Lady B. Good”, “Let’s Do the Boogie Woogie” and other songs spanning the R&B and jazz genre in the 40s.

In the early 50s Bobby Hebb appeared on the roster of special guests on Owen Bradley’s TV. This led to Bobby Hebb playing the spoons in country music star Roy Acuff’s band. In 1955 Bobby Hebb sang backup on Bo Diddley’s “Diddley Daddy”, a Top 20 R&B single that was the follow up to Bo Diddley’s debut #1 smash R&B hit “Bo Diddley”. Hebb was drafted into the U.S. Army and played trumpet in the United States Navy jazz band. A while after he returned to civilian life, Hebb took over from Mickey Baker in Mickey And Sylvia at the end of the 50s when Baker moved to France.

In 1963, the day after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Bobby’s brother, Harold, was killed outside a Nashville nightclub. Harold Hebb had gotten into a knife fight. Bobby Hebb, overcome by the two events, turned to songwriting as a path forward. “Sunny” was the result. According to Hebb, he merely wrote the song as an expression of a preference for a “sunny” disposition over a “lousy” disposition following the murder of his brother. The optimistic lyrics in “Sunny”, came from the artist’s desire to express that one should always “look at the bright side”. Hebb has said about “Sunny”:

All my intentions were to think of happier times and pay tribute to my brother – basically looking for a brighter day – because times were at a low. After I wrote it, I thought “Sunny” just might be a different approach to what Johnny Bragg was talking about in “Just Walkin’ in the Rain”.

In 1966, Bobby Hebb’s “Sunny” peaked at #2 in Canada, the Netherlands and the Billboard Hot 100, #7 in South Africa, #12 in the UK, and #16 in New Zealand. On the Cashbox Top 100 Singles chart in the USA, “Sunny” peaked at number-one and ranked as the #3 song of the year on their Top 100 Pop Singles list for 1966.

Boney M’s “Sunny”peaked at #8 in Sept-Iles (PQ). It charted in hardly any radio markets in either Canada or the USA. It peaked at #13 in Sydney, Australia. Internationally, “Sunny” climbed to number-one in Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and West Germany, #2 in Switzerland, #3 in the UK, #4 in Ireland and Norway, #6 in Finland, #11 in Sweden, #17 in New Zealand, and #21 in Italy.

In 1977 Boney M. released their second studio album Love For Sale. Its debut single was “Ma Baker”. A second single from Love For Sale was “Belfast”. The single shot to number-one in Belgium, France, Ireland, Switzerland and West Germany. It made the Top Ten in Austria, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK. The single was about “the Troubles” in Ireland.

In 1978 Boney M. was at the zenith of their popularity with the release of their third studio album Nightflight to Venus. The debut song from the album was “Rivers Of Babylon”. The song drew on the Biblical texts from Psalms 19 and 137. Originally recorded by the Jamaican group the Melodians in 1972, “Rivers Of Babylon” was Boney M’s biggest hit. It topped the charts in Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and West Germany. It was the number-one song for the year of 1978 in six of these countries. The B-side, “Brown Girl In The Ring”, was also a hit in selected radio markets.

At the end of the year Boney M. had a Christmas hit with “Mary’s Boy Child” which peaked at #1 in Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and West Germany, #2 in the Netherlands, #3 in Austria, #4 in Belgium, and #8 in New Zealand. A followup international hit was “Rasputin”.

In 1979 Boney M. had more international hits with “Hooray! Hooray! It’s a Holi-Holiday” and “El Lute”/”Gotta Go Home”. Into the early 80s the band continued to have some international success outside of North America. Their hits included “I’m Born Again” which was based on an Irish folksong “Buachaill Ón Éirne”; “I See a Boat on the River”; A cover of an Italian hit from 1979 which they retitled “Felicidad (Margherita)”; And an adaptation of a Swahili song titled “Malaika”.

And in 1984 Boney M. had a modest hit with “Kalimba de Luna”, which made the Top 20 in Montreal. This was their last hit, aside from several successful remixes of their hits between 1988 and 1999, variously in France, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and the UK.

In the 1990s Liz Mitchell, Bobby Farrell and Maizie Williams each headed their own Boney M. tours. In 2007 the Latvian cello-rock trio Melo-M, featuring Maizie Williams on vocals, had a number-one hit in Latvia with a new rendition of “Daddy Cool”. A musical on the music of Boney M., titled Daddy Cool, played to theatre audiences in London in 2006, Berlin in 2007, Aberdeen, Scotland, in 2008, Denmark in 2009, and the Netherlands in 2011-2012. More recently, the musical toured across Germany in 2017.

In July 2010, Maizie Williams headlined a Boney M. performance at Ramallah’s Cultural Palace, in the West Bank, as part of the Palestine International Festival. The band played “Daddy Cool”, “Ma Baker” and “Brown Girl in the Ring”, but refrained from playing “Rivers of Babylon”, rumored to be at the event organizers’ request because of its description of the Jewish yearning for Zion.

On the anniversary of Rasputin’s death – December 30, 1916 – Boney M. bandmate Bobby Farrell died on December 30, 2010. Ironically, Farrell died of heart failure in St. Petersburg, Russia, where he had been performing.

March 21, 2026
Ray McGinnis

References:
Dale Maplethorpe, “‘Sunny’ Bobby Hebb’s Personal Tragedy Connects with a Nation,” Far Out Magazine, December 22, 2023.
Nathalie Raffrey, “Liz Mitchell: Harlesden’s pop icon celebrates the 40th anniversary of Boney M’s chart topping Mary’s Boy Child,” Kilburn Times, London, UK, December 13, 2018.
“‘The Group Collapsed’: Boney M Singer Reveals Real Reason ’70s Band Split Up,” Starsat60.com, September 28, 2018.
“Marcia Barrett,” Wikipedia.org.
“Liz Mitchell,” Wikipedia.org.
“Maizie Ursula Williams,” Wikipedia.org.
“Frank Farian,” Wikipedia.org.
“German music producer Frank Farian dies aged 82,” Deustsche Welle, January 23, 2024.
Jürgen Brendel, “Boney M producer Frank Farian turns 75,” Deutsche Welle, July 18, 2016.
Martin Wainwright, “Boney M singer Bobby Farrell Dies at 61,” Guardian, December 30, 2010.

CKCN 560-AM Sept-Iles (PQ) | June 11, 1977