The way back began with a storm. In the wake of Hurricane Gilbert, which struck Jamaica in September 1988, Beres Hammond returned briefly from New York to record with producer Tappa Zukie. Putting Up Resistance (1989) was harder than anything he had made — AllMusic calls it “tougher” — and its title track and the follow-up “Strange” were hits. It reminded Jamaica what it had been missing.
Penthouse
In 1990 Hammond made the return permanent and signed with Donovan Germain’s Penthouse label, the address of the era’s cleanest dancehall productions. The signature song came out of a scheduling problem. “I was trying to get some studio time, but they were all booked up, so I checked Germain and he says he’s all booked up too, but he could work out a deal with me,” Hammond told David Katz in Caribbean Beat. “He had a rhythm, and if I could produce something on that rhythm for him, then he would give me his time.”
The rhythm was Germain and Dave Kelly’s relick of John Holt’s “A Love I Can Feel,” per the credits at Riddim-ID. The lyric arrived on the spot. “Some little girl passed by, I think it was Patra before she broke out, and an idea struck me, ‘Hey little girl, each time you pass my way I’m tempted to touch,’ and I just took it from there,” Hammond said. “Three weeks later that song was mashing up New York, but because this thing was done so fast, I didn’t even remember the name of the song. By the next week it was number one there, blasted the place down here too.”
‘A Love Affair’
“Tempted to Touch” topped the Jamaican chart and became, in AllMusic’s estimate, “perhaps his best-known song in the U.K. and U.S.” It paved the way for the 1992 Penthouse album A Love Affair, which carried further hits in “Is This a Sign” and “Respect to You Baby.” Hammond counted “about eight big chart hits in two years” after “Tempted to Touch.” A 1992 single, “Fire,” became a sought-after 7-inch. The major labels came back: Elektra signed him for In Control (1994), an album Hammond says got lost the week of its release when the label merged with East West. The relationship did not last. His own Harmony House, in partnership with VP Records, would.
Why it matters
“Tempted to Touch” is the record that made Beres Hammond a fixture rather than a comeback — the lovers rock singer a dancehall crowd would wait until 1 a.m. for. Its riddim, he noted, “was the most-played rhythm for quite some time.”
Listen and dig deeper
- Play A Love Affair — including “Tempted to Touch” — Putting Up Resistance and In Control in the Listen library. Browse Donovan Germain and Tappa Zukie.
- Previously: ‘What One Dance Can Do’ (1985). Next: ‘Music Is Life’ and a first Grammy nomination (2002).
Sources: Caribbean Beat — “Beres Hammond: soul survivor” (David Katz, Issue 55); AllMusic — Beres Hammond biography; Riddim-ID — Donovan Germain productions; Roots Archives — Beres Hammond.
Editor’s note: This entry is part of the JamaicansMusic online museum — a career timeline assembled from the archive. It is dated to the era it documents; every claim is drawn from the linked sources.