Frank Farian created the clever fakes Boney M and Milli Vanilli

The German record producer who could spot music trends before anyone else discarded his acts once his tricks were revealed.

Boney M creator and producer Frank Farian.

OBITUARY

Frank Farian, music producer, born Kirn, Germany, July 18, 1941. Died, Miami, Florida, aged 82, on January 23.

Frank Farian, like Sex Pistols ­producer and manager Malcolm ­Maclaren, was a modestly talented man but with a prodigious gift for seeing where modern pop music was headed. And if it wasn’t, they could seemingly bend it to their will.

Both shamelessly and cynically manipulated naive and ambitious singers and musicians, and both left a trail of human debris in their wake.

Farian was born Franz Reuther. His father had been killed in World War II months before. He trained as a cook but, like so many young Germans, was entranced by the music coming out of the United States, particularly Elvis Presley, who was stationed with the US Army in Germany from 1958 to 1960.

Changing his name and forming a band called Frankie Boys Schatten (Shadow), which gigged locally, the ambitious Farian recorded their early efforts in a shed. The album sold 1000 copies. Shedding the band, he launched himself as a schlager singer – an enduring European phenomenon of sentimental lyrics over derivative, cheesy arrangements. It is truly awful.

Spotting the emergence of disco, Farian recorded a couple of successful songs in that style. But the schlager tag was an impediment. Watching television one night late in 1974, he chanced upon an episode of the Australian television series Boney based on the detective novels written by ­Arthur Upfield, who had died 10 years before.

Boney M in 1979.

Farian needed a new name and he liked the sound of Boney and repeated it over and again, adding to it until he settled on Boney M. He had written a song – sort of, he’d stolen it more or less complete from Prince Buster’s Al Capone – called Do You Wanna Bump and released it under the Boney M moniker. It truly is dire, but sold well across the continent.

Farian then had the idea of a Trojan Horse band that would be the front for his songs. He gathered some models and singers and placed Bobby Farrell up front to mime Farian’s ­vocals. The simplistic, repetitive Daddy Cool was issued mid-1976 just as the disco mirror ball illuminated the earth. What Farrell lacked vocally he made up for with a distracting dance routine in which he appeared to be liberating himself from ropes only he could see. Daddy Cool and Boney M took off around the world and Australia joined in (America sensibly resisted the sound).

Farian next nicked the melody of a Tunisian folk song he’d heard on holiday, gave it a disco twist, ­absurd lyrics and called it Ma Baker. This went top 10 almost everywhere. Both songs reached No.5 in Australia.

Then the floodgates opened, Farian effectively creating Eurodisco. The hits flowed, even after it was revealed the members of Boney M had little or nothing to do with the music: Belfast, Rivers of Babylon, Hooray Hooray It’s a Holi-Holiday and then Rasputin. This was Farian at his worst.

Ra-ra Rasputin

Russia’s greatest love machine

It was a shame how he carried on.

Farrell sometimes sang it dressed as Grigori Rasputin. The records sold millions, but by 1980 it was running out of steam.

At the end of the decade, Farian did it again and this time cracked the US. Milli Vanilli was Farian, other songwriters and hired singers. Two Munich models and dancers, Fabrice Morvan and Rob Pilatus, were signed up to be the face of Farian’s dream. Their debut single Girl You Know It’s True was a global hit and they scored three successive Billboard No.1s with Baby Don’t Forget My Number, Girl I’m Gonna Miss You and Blame It On The Rain. Their album sold seven million and they won Best New Artist at the 1990 Grammys.

Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan of Milli Vanilli with the Grammys for 1989 best new artist which were later revoked.

But staff at MTV were struck by their inability to speak English and during a US show a computer failed, repeating a line from one of their hits. The gig was up. Farian sacked them. The Grammy was revoked. Fans were offered refunds on their records. Morvan and Pilatus, who had pushed Farian to play a serious role in their music, had been ­repeatedly brushed off with “not yet”.

Morvan has struggled with a low-key solo career. Pilatus filled the vacuum with drugs and died of an overdose in April 1998.

Boney M’s Farrell could sing, and Farian allowed him to on some tours. Discovering that Farian had not registered the name in all territories, the bankrupt singer rejoined the others for a one-year reunion. He later toured some countries as Bobby Farrell’s Boney M.

Aged 61, he died alone in a Russian hotel room on December 30, 2010 – the same day Rasputin died and in the same city, St Petersburg.