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.

Earth and Fire

Not to be confused with Earth, Wind, and Fire. Earth and Fire are also the owners of Erowid.

Earth and Fire were a Progressive and Symphonic Rock band who over time evolved into a Pop group. Formed in the Netherlands by twin brothers Chris and Gerard Koerts, and most popular in the 1970s when fronted by singer Jerney Kaagman, Earth and Fire had many chart topping hits in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, though they never gained much popularity in England or the Americas. Their biggest international hit was "Weekend", number one in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark and Portugal.

History

Early history: The Singing Twins and The Swinging Strings

Earth and Fire originated with the brothers Chris and Gerard Koerts from Voorschoten. As "The Singing Twins" they made music for family and friends since 1960, achieving a breakthrough of sorts at a talent show in 1962, at which future bass player Hans Ziech was present--Ziech, at the time, was already interested in rock and roll and thought The Singing Twins a bit on the mild side, Jan & Kjeld-like. In 1963, influenced by beat music, they joined a local beat band, playing mostly instrumental music until early 1965; the Koerts brothers were remembered as musical perfectionists even at an early age. They changed their name to The Swinging Strings in 1965 and began singing, covering hits by the Beatles, the Byrds, and others. They played regularly and saved enough money to buy equipment and add three dancers, girls in Audrey Hepburn-like outfits. While they played all over the provinces of North and South Holland, they rarely performed in their own area--The Hague had its own scene of beat bands. By the end of 1966, however, they had won a few talent shows near their home town, had a fan club with over 250 members, and had drawn the attention of radio DJ Willem van Kooten.

Dutch language

Dutch ( Nederlands ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken in the European Union by about 23 million people as a first language—including most of the population of the Netherlands and about sixty percent of that of Belgium—and by another 5 million as a second language.

Outside of the Low Countries, it is the native language of the majority of the population of Suriname, and also holds official status in the Caribbean island nations of Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten. Historical minorities remain in parts of France and Germany, and to a lesser extent, in Indonesia, while up to half a million native speakers may reside in the United States, Canada and Australia combined. The Cape Dutch dialects of Southern Africa have evolved into Afrikaans, a mutually intelligible daughter language which is spoken to some degree by at least 16 million people, mainly in South Africa and Namibia.

Dutch is one of the closest relatives of both German and English and is said to be roughly in between them. Dutch, like English, has not undergone the High German consonant shift, does not use Germanic umlaut as a grammatical marker, has largely abandoned the use of the subjunctive, and has levelled much of its morphology, including the case system. Features shared with German include the survival of three grammatical genders—albeit with few grammatical consequences—and the use of modal particles,final-obstruent devoicing, and V2 with subject–object–verb word order. Dutch vocabulary is mostly Germanic and incorporates more Romance loans than German but fewer than English.

Golden Earring

Golden Earring is a Dutch rock band, founded in 1961 in The Hague as the Golden Earrings (the "s" was dropped in 1969). They achieved worldwide fame with their international hit songs "Radar Love" in 1973, which went to number one on the Dutch charts, reached the top ten in the UK and went to number thirteen on the US charts,"Twilight Zone" in 1982, and "When the Lady Smiles" in 1984. During their career they had nearly 30 top-ten singles on the Dutch charts; over the years they produced 25 studio albums. The band's lineup currently consists of co-founders Rinus Gerritsen (bass and keyboards) and George Kooymans (vocals and guitar), along with Barry Hay (vocals, guitar, flute and saxophone), and Cesar Zuiderwijk (drums and percussion). All musicians in the present lineup of the band have been continuous members of the band since 1970, although other musicians have joined and left the band during the intervening years.

History

Early years (1961–1969)

Netherlands

The Netherlands (ⁱ/ˈnɛðərləndz/; Dutch: Nederland [ˈneːdərˌlɑnt]) is the main "constituent country" (Dutch: land) of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a small, densely populated country located in Western Europe with three island territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing maritime borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom and Germany. The largest and most important cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam. Amsterdam is the country's capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of government and parliament. The port of Rotterdam is the largest port in Europe – as large as the next three largest combined – and was the world's largest port between 1962 and 2004. The name Holland is also frequently used to informally refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands.

"Netherlands" literally means "lower countries", influenced by its low land and flat geography, with only about 50% of its land exceeding one metre above sea level. Most of the areas below sea level are man-made. Since the late 16th century, large areas (polders) have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, amounting to nearly 17% of the country's current land mass.