Althea & Donna

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. In those days respectable middle-class Jamaican girls did not have anything to do with reggae, so one of them got expelled from her high school.