Goombay Dance Band
Goombay Dance Band | |
---|---|
General information | |
founding | 1979 |
Website | Goombay-dance-band.com |
Current occupation | |
Ernest Clinton | |
Alicia Bendt | |
Dorothy Hellings | |
Wendy Doorsen | |
Mario Slijngaard | |
former members | |
Beverlee Wallace | |
Wendy Walker | |
Oliver Bendt |
The Goombay Dance Band , based in Norderstedt in Schleswig-Holstein , was founded by Oliver Bendt in the late 1970s .
history
Bendt, who sang with the Regensburger Domspatzen when he was a child , was a successful actor and pop singer before founding the Goombay Dance Band. After spending three years in the Caribbean and marrying a local resident there, he returned to Germany and founded the Goombay Dance Band, named after a small bay on the island of St. Lucia . In addition to Bendt and his wife Alicia and the children Danny and Yasmin , Dorothy Hellings, Wendy Doorsen and Mario Slijngaard belonged to the formation.
The group had their breakthrough in early 1980 with the song Sun of Jamaica , which took up the Caribbean atmosphere of the beach and sea and combined Caribbean music with light pop sounds. The single was written by the successful pop composers Ekkehard Stein and Wolfgang Jass . In no time it rose to the top of the German charts , where it stayed for nine weeks, and became the best-selling single of the year. Sun of Jamaica stayed in the German Top 10 for over half a year . The song also came in first in Austria and the Netherlands and was a success in many other countries. To date, the single has been sold almost 11 million times. With Aloha-Oe, Until We Meet Again , Eldorado and Rain , three more hits followed by the beginning of 1981, which, like the first album Zauber der Karibik , reached the top 10 in Germany. Some of the hit hits were produced by German musicians Holger Julian Copp and Hanno Harders ( known as Beagle Music Ltd. in the mid-1980s ).
The formation's greatest international success came in early 1982 with Seven Tears , which was again a Jass / Stein composition based on the folk song of the same name. Released in Germany in the summer of 1981, the song did not get past number 13, in Great Britain the single made it to number 1 . The Goombay Dance Band was the first English singing pop group from Germany to top the British charts for three weeks in a row, and was therefore even entered in the Guinness Book of Records .
After 1982 the band disappeared from the charts, after 1985 initially no singles and albums were released. Nevertheless, the group remained musically active in the following decades and celebrated a comeback in the German album charts in 1995 with the LP Island of Dreams .
For their success, the group was awarded three platinum and twelve gold records , including platinum for the single Sun of Jamaica in Germany and gold for the single Seven Tears in England.
For the 30th anniversary, the group recorded a new album in 2009 called the 30th Anniversary Collection . From this the titles Over the Oceans and In My Dreams were published as download singles. The song Is This the Way to the World Cup was released during the 2010 soccer World Cup .
Ernest Clinton, former front man of the group Soulful Dynamics , has been the new singer of the Goombay Dance Band since 2017 after Oliver Bendt retired at the end of 2016.
Discography
Albums
year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks / months, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks / months, awards, notes) |
Remarks | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
DE | AT | CH | UK | |||
1980 | Magic of the Caribbean |
DE3 (24 weeks) DE |
AT1 (5½ months) AT |
- | - |
First published: May 1980
|
Land of Gold |
DE41 (11 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
First published: November 1980
|
|
1981 | Holiday in Paradise |
DE17 (12 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
First published: July 1981
|
1982 | Tropical dreams |
DE9 (9 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
First published: March 1982
|
Seven Tears | - | - | - |
UK16 (9 weeks) UK |
First published: March 1982
|
|
1995 | Island of Dreams |
DE57 (7 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
First published: August 1995
|
gray hatching : no chart data available for this year
More albums
- 1982: Born to Win
- 1993: summer, sun, beach
- 1998: Christmas Album
- 2009: 30th Anniversary Collection
Compilations
- 1991: Sun of Jamaica
- 1999: Caribbean Beach Party
- 2005: Greatest Hits
- 2007: Golden Dreams of Eldorado (3-CD box)
Singles
year | Title album |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
DE | AT | CH | UK | |||
1979 |
Sun of Jamaica Sun of Jamaica |
DE1
platinum
(41 weeks)DE |
AT1 (28 weeks) AT |
CH3 (17 weeks) CH |
UK50 (4 weeks) UK |
First published: October 1979
Chart entry in UK only in May 1982 |
1980 | Aloha-Oe, Until We Meet Again Sun of Jamaica |
DE5 (22 weeks) DE |
AT1 (12 weeks) AT |
- | - |
First published: April 1980
|
Eldorado Land of Gold |
DE4 (27 weeks) DE |
AT14 (18 weeks) AT |
- | - |
First published: September 1980
|
|
1981 | Rain Land of Gold |
DE9 (15 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
First published: February 1981
|
Seven Tears Mama Coco |
DE13 (24 weeks) DE |
AT15 (4 weeks) AT |
- |
UK1
gold
(12 weeks)UK |
First published: May 1981
Chart entry in UK only in February 1982 |
|
Christmas at Sea Christmas album |
DE22 (5 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
First published: November 1981
|
|
1982 | My Bonnie Born to Win |
DE50 (10 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
First published: January 1982
|
More singles
|
|
swell
- ^ Hit-Lexikon des Rock und Pop, Frank Laufenberg, Ullstein 2004
- ↑ NDR "Hitlisten des Nordens" ( Memento from October 17th, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b http://www.goombaydanceband.net/bio.html
- ↑ a b gold / platinum databases: DE UK
- ↑ Goombay Dance Band feat. Ernest Clinton 2017 (pdf)
- ↑ a b Chart sources: Singles Albums UK