Althea & Donna

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cover of the 1978 album "Uptown Top Ranking" released by Virgin

Althea & Donna is a Jamaican reggae singing duo.

1 Career
2 Trivia
3 See also
4 Reference

[edit] Career

The young singers Althea Forrest (17), and Donna Reid (18), made a big surprise with their one-off hit, "Uptown Top Ranking". It was produced by Joe Gibbs based on the riddim of the Alton Ellis' song "I'm Still In Love" of 1967, which was already popularised by Marcia Aitken's cover "I'm Still In Love With You Boy". Their song also used a re-write of the track "Three Piece Suit" by Trinity.

"Uptown Top Ranking" reached number one in the UK singles chart in February, 1978, but had only one week at the chart summit. Oddly the surprise was compounded by the act often being billed as "Althia & Donna", and the song sometimes entitled slightly differently, as "Up Town Top Ranking". The track was written by the duo and Errol Thompson. Althea & Donna thus became the youngest female duo to reach the pinnacle of the UK chart.

They released the album of the same name in 1978, but never met with any more tangible success thereafter.

[edit] Trivia

"Uptown Top Ranking" has been covered by Scout Niblett, who released it as a single in 2004.
The song was also covered by Black Box Recorder on their album England Made Me and by German Producer Joni Rewind in 2002, featuring the vocal talents of Estelle
Another well-known cover-version was released by Portishead
The song was also sampled for Abs Breen's 2002 Top Ten hit single, "What You Got"
In 2003, Althea & Donna appeared in the cover of the Soul Jazz Records compilation "600% Dynamite!"
The song also appeared on the 2005 Australian compilation "Bondi Calling 3"