Finley Quaye

Amid a sea of slouching, anorak wearing, mop-topped Brit-pop posers, Finley Quaye suddenly burst into the charts in the mid-1990s with glorious sun-baked slices of reggae swagger and driving guitar pop. The son of the jazz and bebop singer Cab Kaye, Quaye grew up in Edinburgh and only met his father in his twenties, but inherited a love of jazz melodies and African rhythms. He first appeared as a vocalist on A Guy Called Gerald's club hit Finley's Rainbow in 1995, but it was his single Sunday Shining (a re-working of Bob Marley's Sun Is Shining) that really established him as a major star. It became one of the anthems of the year and paved the way for his platinum selling debut album Maverick A Strike (1997) and further hits Even After All and Your Love Gets Sweeter. In 1998 Quaye beat Elton John, Robbie Williams and Paul Weller to win the BRIT Award for Best Male and his second album Vanguard (2000) scored the Top 20 hit Spiritualized; but his popularity subsequently waned and comeback records Much More Than Love (2004) and Pound For Pound (2008) made very little impact.