Goombay Dance Band

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Goombay Dance Band is a German band created in 1979 by Oliver Bendt, named after a small bay on the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia. Their music has a distinctive sound (somewhat similar to Boney M.), which is a mixture of soca, calypso and western pop.

The group enjoyed greatest commercial success at the beginning of the 1980s, spawning such number 1 hits as "Sun of Jamaica", "Seven Tears" and "Aloha-Oe, Until We Meet Again". Goombay Dance Band built up a fan base across Europe and proved very popular in South Africa too, where "Sun of Jamaica" and "Aloha-Oe" entered the charts.

The band released the song "Sun of Jamaica" at the end of 1979. It topped the German single charts for nine weeks in 1980 and has sold in 11 million copies.

Their next single was "Aloha-Oe, Until We Meet Again", based on a Liliuokalani's composition "Aloha ʻOe". The song charted within the top 5 in European charts, including the number 1 spot in Austria.

The group's debut album Zauber der Karibik, internationally known as Sun of Jamaica, was met with commercial success, reaching the top 5 in several countries. The second album, Land of Gold, performed much worse, only charting outside the German top 40, but spawned hits "Eldorado" and "Rain".

In 1981, the band released the album Holiday in Paradise, which featured the song "Seven Tears". When released in the UK next year, "Seven Tears" became the band's breakthrough hit on the British market, where it topped the singles chart for three weeks and was also a million-seller. This success was followed by the release of the compilation Seven Tears, which was well received in the UK, while in mainland Europe, the band released the retrospective Tropical Dreams to a modest success.

However, the group's subsequent releases did not draw as much attention. The next studio album, Born to Win, failed to chart and did not produce any impactful hits. In 1984 and 1985, Goombay Dance Band released several non-album singles, which were commercial failures.

In the 1990s, the band released several albums, including the Christmas Album and the compilation Island of Dreams, which was met with moderate chart success and featured a new version of "Sun of Jamaica".

The band celebrated their 30th anniversary with a collection of new songs and re-recorded hits in 2009. The following year, they recorded "Is This the Way to the World Cup" to celebrate the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Currently, Goombay Dance Band are still occasionally recording and performing, albeit with a new line-up, and as of 2012, were still maintaining a Facebook page.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6liQCU6rOo

"Sun of Jamaica" is a song performed by German group Goombay Dance Band, written by Ekkehard Stein and Wolfgang Jass. The song was released at the end of 1979, and subsequently included on their debut album, Sun of Jamaica.

The lyrics recount the narrator's desire to visit Jamaica after seeing Mutiny on the Bounty as a boy. When he visits, he falls in love with a woman, and vows to later return to be with her. The song was highly successful across Europe, reaching number 1 in no less than five countries. Goombay Dance Band have re-recorded the track a number of times later in their career.