Born Hugh Beresford Hammond in 1953, Beres is considered the lover’s rock singer par excellence in Jamaica and around the world. He became the singer of the band Zap Pow in 1975. His youth influences were American soul artists, such as like Sam Cooke and Otis Redding. But it was more Peter Tosh, Ken Boothe, Alton Ellis and The Heptones, his reggae idols that pushed him to persevere in this style of music. He had to wait until 1976 to release his first album Soul Reggae on the label Aquarius, his first great success, in the wake of the single One Step Ahead, which held the first place on the charts for fourteen weeks! Despite this, he did not record any more albums for the next few years and only focused on producing singles. He will quit Zap Pow in 1979.

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