With his wild, Afro-styled hair, outrageous disco dancing and outlandish costumes, Bobby Farrell cut a striking figure as the sole male member of Boney M. His distinctive, deep bass voice helped to make memorable such disco hits of the late 1970s as Daddy Cool, Rivers of Babylon, Brown Girl in the Ring, Rasputin and Hooray! Hooray! It's A Holi-Holiday. At least, most listeners assumed that it was Farrell's voice. Subsequently it emerged that Farrell barely sang in the studio, and the male voice on the group's hit recordings belonged to Frank Farian, the German producer who put Boney M together.

Reluctant to appear on stage, Farian employed Farrell to sing on Boney M's live appearances and become the group's central visual focus. Liz Mitchell, one of Boney M's three female members, later explained: "It was understandable because Frank Farian is a white German and the music of Boney M was West Indian, American and African rhythms."

Boney M went on to sell more than 80 million records, and the double Asided single Rivers of Babylon/Brown Girl in the Ring spent 40 weeks on the British chart in 1978 and remains the fifth highest-selling single in UK chart history.

Farrell was sacked from the group in 1981, but by then the disco boom had passed its zenith. Boney M eventually disbanded in 1986, and in later years the group's name was the subject of much legal wrangling between former group members and Farian.

At one time there were no fewer than five different versions of the group on tour, and Farrell performed variously under the names Bobby Farrell's Boney M and Boney M Featuring Bobby Farrell. At the time of his death he was still touring with three female backing singers...