Baccara

Spanish flamenco performers Mayte Mateus and Maria Mendiolo had already been entertaining tourists together since 1977 when RCA executive Leon Deane signed them. Rechristened Baccara, the pair teamed with Rolf Soja, who wrote their first single, “Yes Sir I Can Boogie.” Issued in mid-1977, the track surged through the U.K. charts and reached number one that September. Powered by this success, their self-titled debut album quickly became a hit, while the follow-up single “Sorry I’m a Lady” delivered another U.K. chart entry for the duo early the next year. European tours expanded their following and widened exposure for later releases.

Light My Fire appeared in 1978 and yielded several singles, among them “La Bamba” and “Parlez-Vous Français?” The latter served as Luxembourg’s entry in that year’s Eurovision Song Contest. As demand grew, Baccara became frequent guests on Germany’s Musikladen and England’s Sacha Distel Show while disco remained popular.

Only two further albums followed—Colours in 1979 and Bad Boys in 1981. Hits continued to surface in Spain, Germany, and Japan through this period, though Britain largely viewed the act as a one- or two-hit phenomenon; their final Baccara album never reached U.K. stores. By the time Bad Boys arrived, both Mateus and Mendiolo were pursuing separate projects, and the original lineup dissolved in 1983. Midway through the decade, however, each woman fronted her own version of the group: Mendiolo performed as Baccara with Marissa Perez, while Mateus launched New Baccara, first alongside Jane Comerford and later with Gina T. The Mendiolo-Perez lineup scored several late-’80s HI-NRG club successes—“Touch Me,” “Fantasy Boy,” and “Call Me Up”—that led to the 1990 album New Baccara’s Fun, Fun, Fun, which featured a fresh recording of “Yes Sir I Can Boogie.”

Both iterations of Baccara kept recording and touring into the ’90s; a cover of “Wind Beneath My Wings” became a strong U.K. club hit, and assorted compilation packages appeared without clear separation between the two acts. In the late ’90s New Baccara removed the prefix and simply reclaimed the name Baccara, releasing the collection Baccara 2000 in 1999. Maria Mendiolo died on September 11, 2021, at age 69.