Lover’s rock: the story of reggae’s Motown
Lover’s rock: the story of reggae’s Motown
In 1979, Janet Kay’s piercing falsetto was one of the defining sounds of the summer. Silly Games, her bittersweet ode to a faltering relationship, enjoyed heavy radio play, thanks in part to a subtle arrangement by songwriter/producer Dennis Bovell, a distinctive drum pattern from Aswad’s Angus Gaye and distribution on a Warners subsidiary. The song reached No 2, the highest chart placing for a black, British woman at that point. It also signalled a coming of age for lover’s rock, the softened, British reggae sub-genre that focused on romance, but, as noted in Menelik Shabazz’s documentary The Story of Lover’s Rock, involved so much more than setting teenaged heartbreak to a reggae beat.