Soul Jazz Records Presents BROWN SUGAR - I'm In Love With A Dreadlocks: Brown Sugar And The Birth Of Lovers Rock 1977-80

Album review

England's best archivist, Soul Jazz, opens a window on one of the most important periods in British Reggae: the fashion of “lovers rock”. Based on "romantic" pieces, the genre was predominant at sound system parties in England in the late ‘70s, offering a sensual counterpoint to the rasta sounds from Jamaican artists at the same time. The re-release label has returned with this compilation on the history of the female vocal trio Brown Sugar, launched in 1976 by three teenagers from South London, Pauline Catlin, Caron Wheeler and Carol Simms, who separated four years later.

However, four years was enough for them to leave their mark on the genre, thanks to shed loads of 45 rpms - but never an album - produced by Denis Bovell, whose strong bass mixes would give a thickness and a sound system mentality to the potential hits composed by the three young women, such as the soulful opening track Black Pride which was sprinkled with sound effects. "Our aim was to create a style of music that my generation could identify with", explains Bovell in the cover notes. "A style with a beat that you could dance to with your partner in a sound system."

Mission accomplished: these thirteen super-danceable tracks should be more than enough to make Brown Sugar go down in history. The three women separated in 1980 but didn’t stop making music. Pauline Catlin recently got back in the game under the name Shezekiel, Carol Simms, who is now known as Kofi, continued with lovers rock with producer Mad Professor, and Caron Wheeler continued to make a mark on English music by becoming the singer of the Soul II Soul group. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz