Lovers rock
Lois Wilson swoons to the reggae soundtrack to young love.
“The dancefloor was a safe space in a time of social uhheaval.”
INITIALLY CENTRED around sentimental ballads voiced by young black British women, lovers rock provided the thrilling soundtrack to the late ’70s and early ’80s blues parties immortalised in Steve McQueen’s excellent BBC film, Lovers Rock. One standout scene featured a crowded dancefloor united in singing Janet Kay’s Silly Games, the reggae subgenre’s breakthrough tune. Written and produced by Dennis Bovell, Silly Games took lovers rock into the mainstream in 1979 when it reached Number 2 in the UK singles chart; it also made Kay the highest charting black British female of that time.
Based in south London, Bovell had witnessed the birth of the genre four years earlier, playing with his band Matumbi on what is widely acknowledged as the first lovers rock record, Louisa Mark’s Caught You In A Lie, the then 14 year-old’s cover of the Robert Parker soul song, which placed her sweet vocals over easygoing rhythms. It had been Bovell’s erstwhile collaborator, the producer
Dennis Harris, who originally coined the term with his Lovers Rock label which, utilising the core house band of Bovell and guitarist John
Kpiaye, was home to a series of genre-defining singles by Brown
Sugar, Vivian Clark, Cassandra and TT Ross.
Vital in bringing a female perspective to the male-dominated militancy of roots reggae, lovers rock took musical pointers from the rocksteady of Alton Ellis and Phyllis Dillon and the smooth soul of Philadelphia and Chicago, while aligning itself with the politics of disco – the dancefloor as safe space and pressure valve during a time of huge social upheaval. Although illustrating the black British experience, such was its wider popularity that by the ’80s, Jamaican singers such as Sugar Minott, Johnny Clarke and Gregory Isaacs were adopting the style.
Britain in the late ’70s/early ’80s undoubtedly saw lovers rock’s golden age and forms the timeframe for our chosen albums here, but the music never lost its momentum, with acts like Sandra Cross taking it to new levels of sophistication into the ’90s, and Hollie Cook and Schniece bringing it to a fresh audience today.