FEATURE:
Groovelines
Althea & Donna - Uptown Top Ranking
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A chart-topping hit…
IN THIS PHOTO: Althea & Donna in 1977
in the U.K. Uptown Top Ranking is a song that some people might not know about. Recorded by Althea Forrest and Donna Reid, they were only teens when they made it. Seen by some as a one-hit wonder or novelty, I actually think the song is much more worthy and important than that. One of the best tracks of the 1970s, I listen to it now and it still sounds incredible and catchy as hell! A song one cannot help but sing along to, in the track, they are heard ad-libbing to deejay track, Three Piece Suit by Trinity. Penned by Althea & Donna and Errol Thompson, the record was initially meant to be a joke. Something throwaway that was never meant to see the light of day. Whether a case of serendipity and supernatural foresight or a happy accident, BBC Radio 1’s John Peel saw value in the track and played it. In February 1978, Uptown Top Ranking reached the top of the U.K. singles chart. I wonder what would have been were it not for John Peel! Althea & Donna became the youngest female duo to reach the number-one spot on the U.K. chart. Whether a one-hit wonder or not, there is no doubting that the story and success of the song is interesting. I love how it went from a potential lost song to one that topped the charts and stayed around for a long time. The public were clearly compelled by a song that it loose, swaggering, catchy, light and punchy at the same time. It is a wonderful cocktail of sounds and sensations that has endured. Forty-four years after it topped the chart, I wanted to dive deep into Althea & Donna’s classic.
There is not a great deal of information about Uptown Top Ranking. I have found a few pieces. Classic Pop Magazine included the song in their series where they look at one-hit wonders:
“Jamaican singers Althea Forrest and Donna Reid were just 17 and 18 when they cut the track in 1977. Conceived as a mere light-hearted “answer song” to Trinity’s Three Piece Suit, it was an inauspicious beginning. Despite that, Uptown Top Ranking still sounds superb 40 years later.
The track, produced by Joe Gibbs, was essentially based on the 1967 Alton Ellis tune I’m Still In Love, which had already been repopularised by Marcia Aitken as I’m Still In Love With YouBoy. However, it was the Three Piece Suit version – itself a Joe Gibbs production – which sparked the new, improvised lyrics from Althea & Donna.
In another odd twist, Uptown Top Ranking was originally played by John Peel completely by accident (at the right speed for once from Peelie, though), and the legendary taste-making DJ was soon inundated with listener requests to give the record more spins on his show.
The song eventually hit No. 1 in the UK charts in February 1978 after a notable Top Of The Pops appearance. Despite spending 11 weeks on the charts, it enjoyed only a single week at the summit”.
Despite topping the chart for just a week, I hear Uptown Top Ranking on the radio all the time! I guess Britain adopted the song and took it to heart quicker than others. Because the country had a love of Reggae and Ska in the 1970s, perhaps it is no surprise they recognised and embraced a terrific song that was unique but also universal. As this article explains, Althea & Donna are in a rare position of being an act whose only hit was a chart topper:
“Released : 1977
Britain’s love of reggae – a sound first imported by Jamaican immigrants in the fifties and sixties along with their sound systems – peaked in the seventies, Bob Marley & The Wailers No Woman No Cry starting a run of hit singles in late 1975 which continued long after his untimely death.
For the black communities from which it came reggae was also emblematic of the political and social conflicts which they experienced first hand, problems which home grown bands such as Steel Pulse and Black Slate articulated on songs such as Ku Klux Klan. Equally it’s popularity made for opportunities in the mainstream and Kingston teenagers Althea Rose Forrest and Donna Marie Reid would along with Pluto Shervington’s Dub released the year before, join a select group of artists whose only hit was a number one.
Produced by the legendary Joe Gibbs, the song was a tribute to peacocking round town but keeping it real and was supposedly written by the pair as a joke. But Uptown Top Ranking was a gloriously sun dappled skank, the singers locked in tight harmony to rocksteady brass and organ. Like all good stories however it’s success turned on a twist of fate; fabled DJ John Peel gave the song it’s radio debut by accident, playing the wrong side of a Gibbs exclusive platter, after which he found himself inundated with please for a repeat”.
A classic song that people are discovering fresh forty-five years after it came out, Uptown Top Ranking is an unexpected hit. With such an unlikely story and sense of luck, the track is a wonderful listen. Every time you come to it you are left wanting more. It is a shame that Althea & Donna did not record a lot more and have long careers. Anyway. They left the music world with a diamond of a track. To this day, it remains…
AN absolute stunner.