Frank Farian, born on July 18th, 1941 as Franz Reuther, probably is best known as the founder of the German disco group Boney M.

After having worked as a cook on a ship, he made his first musical steps with the group "Frank Farian and the Shadows". Then in the early 70's he moved into the German Schlager genre and had some minor hits like "Rocky", a cover version of a song by Austin Roberts, while also producing other Schlager stars like Gilla.

In 1975, he experimented with a new disco record called Baby do you wanna bump under the nickname of Boney M. The single moved slowly but steadily, and when one year later he was approached to do a live performance of the song on TV, he decided to make a group out of Boney M, which was followed by huge sucess for the next years (until around 1980), and medium success until about 1985.

After that, he founded Far Corporation which did two cover versions, Stairway to heaven by Led Zeppelin and Mother and Child Reunion by Paul Simon.

In 1988, he founded Milli Vanilli, whose lead singers Rob and Fab basically lip synched to tracks Frank created with other people. In 1990, Milli Vanilli disbanded after it became clear that Rob & Fab weren't actually singing on the records, which were actually said to be done by a trio called Brothers of Soul.

Finally, in 1995, he discovered No Mercy in Miami and went on to produce them (which you can clearly hear on their sound - some chorus parts on their first hit Where do you go sound much like those on Boney M.'s "Kalimba de luna).