Althea & Donna
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Biography
Althea & Donna is a Jamaican female duo made up of Althea Forrest and Donna Reid, formed in the late 1970s. They shot to fame in 1977 with the single "Uptown Top Ranking", a roots reggae track with lovers rock influences, produced by Joe Gibbs and co-written with Errol Thompson. The two singers, then teenagers, recorded the song initially as an improvisation in response to Trinity's "Three Piece Suit", using the same riddim, that of Alton Ellis' "I'm Still in Love". The track, with its mischievous tone and Jamaican patois lyrics celebrating fashion and feminine confidence, quickly attracted the attention of DJs in Jamaica and then in Britain, where it climbed to number one in the UK charts in February 1978. This dazzling success made Althea & Donna the youngest female Jamaican artists to achieve this level of fame in the UK. Their only album, also entitled Uptown Top Ranking, was released the same year, but failed to make the same impact as the single. Despite several other recording attempts, the duo failed to replicate their initial success and gradually disappeared from the music scene. Nevertheless, Althea & Donna remain an emblematic reference for women's reggae in the 1970s, with a song that has become cult, often covered or sampled, and a symbol of an era when Jamaican reggae was massively popular with the British public.
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