Linx

Linx stood at the forefront of the short-lived yet widely noticed Brit-funk wave that swept through the early 1980s alongside Light Of The World and its offshoots Beggar And Co, Imagination and Freeez. The band centered on the core partnership of vocalist David Grant, born 8 August 1956 in Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies, and bassist Sketch Martin, born in Antigua, West Indies, with keyboardist Bob Carter and drummer Andy Duncan rounding out the lineup. Grant’s relatives relocated to Britain in the late 1950s, and he spent his childhood in north London, whereas Martin arrived in the UK at the age of four and settled in West Ham, east London. The pair first crossed paths while employed at a hi-fi retail outlet. Grant subsequently launched a record store alongside his cousin, took a junior reporting post at a neighborhood newspaper, and later joined the press office at Island Records. Martin, for his part, held positions within the civil service, a film production house, and the Performing Rights Society. Their initial release, the privately pressed single “You’re Lying” limited to 1,000 copies and distributed via a specialist funk retailer, caught the attention of Chrysalis Records, which propelled it to commercial success. Linx thereby became the earliest Brit-funk act to register on American shores when “You’re Lying” entered the R&B charts. Subsequent singles encompassed “Intuition” and “So This Is Romance.” The promotional clip for “Intuition” included a appearance by the late Bertice Reading, and the group’s live shows revived the twin-drummer format previously employed by the Glitter Band and Adam And The Ants. Grant eventually embarked on a solo trajectory at Chrysalis, scoring duet successes with Jaki Graham, before shifting to Polydor Records in 1987 and then to Fourth & Broadway in 1990.