N
o one in reggae turns it out like Beres Hammond. It's not just that mellow, whiskey-grained voice
working deep, sultry sex at the low end of the scale, then spiking to rapturous heights.
It's not even those breathless old school "please please please" stylistics or even the huge canon
of achy breaky love songs that makes the front-row dawtas scream so loud! It's the sobs at the
back of his throat crowding his beatific face, as if this tenderhearted strongman's about to
break right down and cry.
Audiences have been begging this reggae legend for more since 1972, when as a teenage schoolboy,
he took first prize at an amateur talent show with covers of "Peridia" and Jerry Butler's "Need
to be Loved".
He sang leads for Zap Pow, Jamaica's top backing band of the mid-70's, when they recorded 1975's
Zap Pow Now.
Three years later, Hammond's debut solo LP, "Soul Reggae", kicked off a series of chart dominating
singles, beginning with "One Step Ahead," the number one tune on Jamaican charts for four months.
In 1985, he switched from soul to hardcore reggae and came out with the year's number one boomshot,
'What One Dance Can Do'. It was followed by other international reggae sensations, like 'Groovy
Little Thing' and 'She Loves Me Now'. Beres formed his own label, Harmony House, and released
even more number ones, among them 'Double Trouble', and 'Putting Up Resistance'.
It sparked off a chain of Hammond musical explosions that's yet to be broken.
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Ron & Henrik
(source: http://www.realvibes.net) |
