Jamaica's own lovers rock

Jamaican singer and prolific session harmony vocalist known for the lovers ballad "Dear Boopsie" and for backing vocals across countless reggae sessions.

Dancehall-era balladeer (Kevin Anthony Jackson) dubbed the "golden voice of reggae," whose smooth covers and originals - including the Penthouse hit "One in a Million" produced by Donovan Germain - defined the singing side of late-1980s and 1990s dancehall.

Vocal quartet fronted by Michael Bennet(t), born 1962, whose 1980 hit "Irons In the Fire" led to a run of harmony singles and a role backing and arranging J.C. Lodge's "Telephone Love" (1988); in 1990 the group joined Shabba Ranks and Cocoa Tea on Gussie Clarke's "Pirates Anthem" before Bennett's later solo/production career as Home T.

Kingston-born singer (b. c.1948) who first recorded as half of the duo Dandy & Audrey with Dandy Livingstone in 1969, spent much of the 1970s and early '80s as a backing vocalist alongside her sister Pam Hall, and returned as a solo hitmaker in 1986 with "Smile" and "One Dance Won't Do," both produced by Donovan Germain for Penthouse.

British-born Jamaican singer and actress (June Carol Lodge) whose 'Telephone Love' became a signature dancehall-lovers hit and who, with 'Someone Loves You Honey', became one of the first Jamaican women signed to a major US label; a pioneering lovers rock singer.

Chevelle Jasintha Franklyn is a Jamaican singer from Spanish Town who recorded with Steely & Clevie and Winston Riley before featuring on Shabba Ranks's international hit 'Mr. Lover Man' (1991) and scoring her own dancehall hit 'Dancehall Queen' with Beenie Man. In 1998 she publicly turned to gospel reggae, releasing the album Joy (2001) and winning multiple Caribbean Gospel Music Marlin Awards.

Donovan Germain (born 7 March 1952) came into production the way several of the diaspora producers did — through retail. He was running a record shop in New York in the 1970s and began producing in 1972, setting up Revolutionary Sounds from there in the early 1980s alongside the Rub-a-Dub, Reggae and Germain imprints. In 1987 he opened Penthouse in Kingston, named for its position on the top floor of a Slipe Pen Road building, and later moved it to Ballater Avenue with a pressing operation attached. Penthouse became one of the defining rooms of the late 1980s and 1990s: Buju Banton's transition from slack deejay to Rastafari singer happened largely there, and Marcia Griffiths, Beres Hammond, Wayne Wonder, Freddie McGregor, Delroy Wilson and Tenor Saw all recorded for him. He is a good example of something this archive keeps meeting — the producer whose name is on comparatively few sleeves but whose room shaped a decade. He was named Producer of the Year at the EME Awards in 2012, received the Silver Musgrave Medal from the Institute of Jamaica in 2014, and was awarded the Order of Distinction in 2015.

Hugh Beresford Hammond, known as Beres Hammond, is a Jamaican singer and songwriter from Annotto Bay, St Mary, whose grainy soul phrasing became one of reggae's defining romantic voices. After recording solo material in the 1970s and serving as Zap Pow's lead singer from the mid-1970s, he broke through internationally with songs including “What One Dance Can Do,” “Tempted to Touch,” “Putting Up Resistance,” “Rockaway” and “I Feel Good.” His catalogue connects Willie Lindo, Donovan Germain's Penthouse, the Fat Eyes production team, his Harmony House label and VP Records. He received the Order of Jamaica in 2013.

Donovan Germain's Kingston label and studio, and one of the defining operations of the early 1990s — where Buju Banton, Marcia Griffiths, Wayne Wonder, Garnett Silk and Beres Hammond cut some of their strongest work, with Dave Kelly engineering. Penthouse ran a house sound that could hold both hardcore dancehall and singers' material without either sounding out of place.