Maizie Williams

Maizie Williams
Williams performing at Lets Rock Bristol in 2014
Background information
Birth name	Maizie Ursula Williams
Born	(1951-03-25) 25 March 1951 (age 65)
Origin	Montserrat, West Indies
Genres	R&B, eurodisco, reggae
Occupation(s)	Model, singer
Years active	1975–present
Labels	Hansa Records, Sony-BMG
Associated acts	Boney M.

Maizie Ursula Williams (born 25 March 1951, Montserrat, West Indies) is a West Indies-born British model and singer who became one of the original members of the successful 1970s disco music group, Boney M. Though she did not sing on the studio-recordings of their songs, she did perform live and subsequently established an independent career as a singer.

Brought up in Birmingham, England, Williams began working as a model, eventually gaining the title Miss Black Beautiful in a contest in 1973. After this initial success she went on to front her own band, Black Beautiful People. She later moved to West Germany with her friend Sheyla Bonnick. One day in 1975, while at a restaurant, the two were approached by an agent who asked if they were interested in joining a new pop group Boney M. "She asked if we could sing. Well, you don't say no, do you," Williams later recalled in an interview. She had previously been singing with a local band back in England but had been told off by her brother Billy: "You have a terrible voice. Better keep working as a walking clothes-hanger."

It turned out that it was not important if Williams could sing or not, since the job was to dance and mime to a disco song called "Baby Do You Wanna Bump" that producer Frank Farian had recorded all the vocals for himself but was unable to promote himself since he had a career as a schlager singer in his own name. So Williams and Bonnick teamed up with a girl called Nathalie and a boy called Mike and did a discothèque tour and a few TV performances over the next months. Nathalie left and was replaced by Claudja Barry. Sheyla then decided that lip-syncing was not for her and left, hoping to achieve a solo career. Mike left as well, and the two were replaced by new members Marcia Barrett and Bobby Farrell. When Claudja went the same way as Sheyla, Liz Mitchell took her place, and finally the pieces fell together: Boney M. were assembled as a real group and ready to do a follow-up to "Baby Do You Wanna Bump".

Both Liz Mitchell and Marcia Barrett were singers and would participate in the group's recordings together with producer Frank Farian who did the deep male voice. The threesome recorded the follow-up single "Daddy Cool" which soon became a worldwide hit and launched the group's phenomenal career, with numerous hit singles and albums over the next decade. Williams and Bobby Farrell did not sing on the records since "their voices weren't suited for this particular kind of music" as Farian put it in a Bravo interview in 1978. It did not create a scandal – both Williams and Farrell did sing during the group's many live performances during their extensive world tours 1977–1979. Williams remained with the group until the ultimate break-up in 1990. In 1994, she did what her former colleagues Liz Mitchell and Bobby Farrell had also done, she formed her own Boney M group, billed as Boney M featuring Maizie Williams. The group also featured Sheyla Bonnick from the short-lived original 1975 line-up. Williams herself would finally front as a lead singer in the group's renditions of the hits "Brown Girl in the Ring", "Hooray! Hooray! It's a Holi-Holiday", "Sunny" and "Daddy Cool".