Real Milli Vanilli Singer John Davis Dead At Age 66 - NPR

John Davis (right), on stage with former Milli Vanilli star Fabrice "Fab" Morvan, in Eisenach, Germany in 2018. Nico Schimmelpfennig/Getty Images

Nico Schimmelpfennig/Getty Images

One of the real vocalists behind the fake pop act Milli Vanilli has died. South Carolina-born singer John Davis was 66 years old, and died Monday of COVID-19. His death was announced on Facebook by his daughter, Jasmin Davis.

His greatest success came as an unseen voice for the Germany-based R&B-pop duo Milli Vanilli, whose putative singers were Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan. The group was the brainchild of producer Frank Farian, who already had scored big success in the 1970s and 1980s with another group, Boney M, whose disco hits sold some 80 million albums worldwide.

Milli Vanilli won the Best New Artist Grammy in 1990 after the U.S. release of their debut album, Girl You Know It's True — which in truth featured Davis as one of the leads. The song "Girl You Know It's True" went to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and was on the chart for 78 weeks. (The song itself was a cover of a little-known single by a Baltimore-based group called Numarx.)

Davis was brought in after another American-born singer, Charles Shaw, was fired — Farian suspected that Shaw was letting the truth slip. For the American version of the single and the album, it's Davis you hear doing a soft rap.

According to Farian, Davis came to Germany in the late 1970s, and worked as a studio singer and bass player. He released two albums under his own name: Joker, issued in 1980, and Still Be Loving You, recorded with Farian, in 1990.

Milli Vanilli was stripped of its Grammy after Farian, Pilatus and Morvan admitted the hoax in 1990.