Lovers Rock
While most of the developments in the music took place in Jamaica (dub, toasting, dancehall, ragga) there was one form that was born in Britain. Lovers rock, developed in the 1970s, was a smooth, soulful version of reggae, spearheaded by Dennis Brown.
The early years of "lovers rock" have two main resonances: London "blues parties" and discs by girl singers who sounded as if they were still worrying about their school reports. The record that kick-started the phenomenon was the 14-year-old Louisa Marks' plaintive reading of Robert Parker's soul hit, "Caught You In A Lie", with Matumbi as backing group and production by sound-system man Lloyd Coxsone (b. Lloyd Blackwood, Jamaica); this appeared on Coxsone's Safari imprint in 1975 and was impressive enough to see release in Jamaica by Gussie Clake. Several of Louisa Marks's subsequent titles, including "All My Loving" (Safari) and "Six Sixth Street" (Bushays), repeated the success and have remained favourites at revive sessions ever since.
Marks's hit was followed by Ginger Williams "Tenderness" (Third World), and a genre was born-essentially Philly/Chicago soul ballads played over fat reggae basslines. The style was consolidated by the husband-and-wife team of Dennis and Eve Harris who had a big hit with the white singer T.T. Ross's massively popular "Last Date" (Lucky), another key record, and set up a new imprint, Lover's Rock, giving the genre its name.
Later labels such as Fashion Records and Ariwa would go on to take lovers rock to more sophisticated plains and beyond the music's original market of working-class teenagers. and while the music media largely ignored their performers-singers like Peter Hunnigale, Sylvia Tella, Michael Gordon and Keith Douglas they have deservedly scored hit after hit with audiences who trust what they hear rather than read.
Read more about this topic: Caribbean Music In The United Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the words lovers and/or rock:
“There are books ... which take rank in your life with parents and lovers and passionate experiences, so medicinal, so stringent, so revolutionary, so authoritative.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Men are afraid to rock the boat in which they hope to drift safely through life’s currents, when, actually, the boat is stuck on a sandbar. They would be better off to rock the boat and try to shake it loose, or, better still, jump in the water and swim for the shore.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)