Belinda Kimberly "Lindy" Layton (born 7 December 1970) is an English singer. She was a founding member of and vocalist for dance music band Beats International. She has released a number of solo albums and singles and worked with other musicians, more recently including Hardknox and Dub Pistols.

Career

Layton attended the Barbara Speake Stage School in the 1980s and appeared as an actor in TV shows such as Casualty and Press Gang (though many people have mistaken the latter for an appearance in Grange Hill on BBC One, getting Layton mixed up with the actress Lindy Brill, who had also played a character called Cathy (Hargreaves)).

In the early 1990s, Layton was part of Norman Cook's dance music collective Beats International, which featured her as lead vocalist on a couple of singles, including the number-one hit "Dub Be Good to Me". Beats International's debut album, Let Them Eat Bingo, sold moderately.

Following the success of the singles with Beats International in 1990, Layton signed a solo deal with Arista, and released her version of Janet Kay's hit "Silly Games". The single was a hit, and further releases followed from her 1991 debut album Pressure. However, these decreased in popularity. Pressure was mostly produced by Norman Cook and the dance-soul-funk outfit Driza Bone. The album's second single, "Echo My Heart", narrowly missed a UK Top 40 placing in January 1991, while "Wait for Love" produced by Norman Cook failed to reach the UK Top 75 Singles Chart altogether, in April of that year.

Layton's summer 1991 release of "Without You (One and One)" followed, again produced by Driza Bone. "Without You (One and One)" sold better than Layton's previous single, but failed to reach the Top 40. and "Rock Steady" from the 2013 LP Worshipping the Dollar. In 2013, she began a daytime radio show on Kane FM with Mel Foster, The Mrs, which ran for about a year. She is now a songwriter and composes with her writing partner Matt Kootchi, who owns and runs house label Good Lucky Recordings.

Singles

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"

|-

! rowspan="2"| Year

! rowspan="2" style="width:22em;"| Single

! colspan="2"| Peak positions

! rowspan="2"| Album

|- style="font-size:smaller;"

! width="35"| <small>UK</small><br>

! width="35"| <small>NED</small>

|-

| 1990

! scope="row"| "Silly Games" <small>(featuring Janet Kay)</small>

| 22 || —

| align="left" rowspan="4"| Pressure

|-

| rowspan="3"| 1991

! scope="row"| "Echo My Heart"

| 42 || 61

|-

! scope="row"| "Wait for Love"

| 84 || —

|-

! scope="row"| "Without You (One and One)"

| 71 || —

|-

| 1992

! scope="row"| "I'll Be a Freak for You"

| 89 || —

| align="left" rowspan="3"| Singles only

|-

| rowspan="2"| 1993

! scope="row"| "We Got the Love"

| 38 || —

|-

! scope="row"| "Show Me"

| 47 || —

|-

| 1996

! scope="row"| "Who Do You Think You Are?" <small>(Japan only)</small>

| – || —

| align="left" rowspan="1"| No Other Star

|-

|align="center" colspan="5" style="font-size:8pt"| "—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released.

|}

References

  • Lindy Layton on Myspace
  • [ Allmusic.com Profile for Hardknox]
  • Pitchforkmedia.com Review of Hardknox Debut LP
  • GrooveDiggerz page on Breakin Even Records