Susan Cadogan
Alison Anne ‘Susan’ Cadogan burst onto the international music scene in the Spring of 1975 when her sultry cover of Millie Jackson‘s R&B hit, ‘Hurt So Good’ leapt to number four position on the UK pop charts.
Over the years that have followed, she has repeatedly demonstrated the depth of her talent, overcoming numerous obstacles to remain at the very top of her profession by producing a body of work few of her peers have been able to equal. Today she is still producing great music and enthralling audiences worldwide with her dynamic live performances. This is her story…
Susan was born in Saint Andrew in 1951; music was in the family as her mother Lola was a professional singer whose sacred choral songs were issued on Jamaican 78s. As her father was a Methodist minister from Belize, the family lived in that country while Anne (as the girl was known) was in primary school; they returned to Saint Andrew in the late 1950s.
Inspired by the Supremes, the Platters and Ben E. King, Anne loved to sing in her youth but never dreamed of trying it professionally until a school friend arranged for her to attend a recording session at Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s Black Ark studio in the summer of 1974. As Cadogan recalls,
“I had a friend named Teresa Bryan. Her boyfriend, Jerry Lewis, was this disc jockey at JBC. He asked her to sing this song he had written called ‘Love My Life’, so both of us were to do it, but n the end I sang Jerry’s song alone. When I was finished voicing, Lee Scratch said ‘Jerry, lend me your singer now.’ He didn’t even know my name.”
The track was released by Total Sounds in Jamaica, and eventually gained issue on the Black Wax label in the UK, but caused little impact on either shore.
Lee Perry noted Cadogan’s individual approach, her husky voice holding sensual undertones, and immediately sought to place her on a rhythm he had built earlier with bassist Boris Gardiner. The rhythm was a cover version of ‘Hurt So Good’, an ambiguous love song with hints of masochism that was a big hit for the risqué American soul singer, Millie Jackson.
Cadogan delivered exactly what Perry wanted: a sultry and suggestive vocal that retained a slight hint of innocence. But as ever, Scratch wasn’t happy with her given name, as Cadogan notes:
“After I sang ‘Hurt So Good’, he said, ‘What’s your name’? I said, ‘I am Anne Cadogan.’ He said ‘Anne? No man! You mean Susan, that sound sexy!’ Then he said he liked how I sing, and he wanted me to try some other songs. He gave me some tapes to learn and I took them home.”
The re-named Cadogan returned to the Ark the following Sunday and every subsequent Sunday for the next few months; by Christmas over a dozen songs had been cut with drummer Benbow Creary and keyboardist Ansel Collins. When Glen Adams returned from a lengthy stay in New York, he took over organ duties and engaged in a romantic tryst with the singer, which Perry suggests was ultimately problematic.
‘Hurt So Good’ is probably the most commercial record Scratch ever produced, although he managed to install some kind of roots sensibility to the tune through a sublime musical arrangement, which made good use of the heavily Jamaicanised rhythm section and original horn parts from the Zap Pow brass. Additionally, Cadogan’s peculiarly seductive intonation, hinting at the drawl of the American South, greatly added to the record’s overall appeal. Harmonic backing by the soon-to-be-massive Mighty Diamonds also gave the song added depth.
Scratch cut the single on his new ‘Perries’ label some weeks after Cadogan voiced it, but ‘Hurt So Good’ failed to hit in Jamaica, possibly because an alternate version of the song was issued with another vocalist by a rival producer in the same period. However, pre-release copies given to Ethnic label founder, Larry Lawrence saw an enthusiastic response to the disc in London in the summer of 1974, particularly at the Notting Hill Carnival.
Lawrence says Scratch promised to let him issue the first hit to emerge from his studio in the UK, and says he printed labels for the tune and prepared a stamper. However, Perry subsequently entrusted the UK issue of the ‘Hurt So Good’ single to DIP, a rival label established by Dennis Harris. The DIP release had a different mix than the Jamaican original, with its version side, ‘Loving Is Good’, sounding more dubwise with extra Perry percussion. And DIP’s issue of the song found far greater favour in the UK than Perry’s previous Jamaican issue, striking a chord with a surprisingly broad section of the British public.
When aspiring pop music producer and mainstream record executive, Pete Waterman heard the tune playing in a record shop, he realised its hit potential, and brought a copy of the song to the major Magnet label, who were promoting big-name commercial pop acts like Alvin Stardust and Guys and Dolls. Magnet approached DIP and licensed the single, bringing it straight into the UK charts in March 1975. Cadogan was duly summoned to London for an appearance on Top of The Pops, which was to introduce her to millions of British TV viewers.
As ‘Hurt So Good’ leapt to a number four position on the UK pop charts, Perry flew to London to confront his budding starlet, who was now in league with Magnet, the company who reaped the most from the tune after acquiring it from DIP.
“Magnet said that they need me to sign this contract”, Cadogan explains, “they put me in a hotel, they did everything for me. I remember Perry coming to my hotel room, he walk up and down and ask if I sign anything with these people. I say, ‘No I haven’t, but I have to sign something with them, they say they own the record’. I remember he held my wrist and said, ‘If you sign that thing I’m going to make sure you never get a cent!’ and I was annoyed.”
As Magnet had flown her to London and were paying for her living expenses, Cadogan felt she had no other option. Young and inexperienced, she signed a contract that was definitely not in her favour:
“I got £3,000 on signing with Magnet, and every statement I ever got from them, they excluded ‘Hurt So Good’ from it. That one money I got, that was it, and out of all the royalties they were getting, they paid all my airfare, my hotel bills, my clothes, food and everything, so I was always in debt. I remember Magnet bought Pete Waterman a Jaguar for finding ‘Hurt So Good’, and they said that I couldn’t drive so they wouldn’t bother give me one.”
In June 1975, things really came to a head when a legal battle ensued over who held rights to the hit. It would mark the end of Susan’s working relationship with Perry, and would ultimately have a detrimental effect upon her career.
“Because of all the trouble [Magnet] got into with ‘Hurt So Good’, they froze all the money and didn’t want Lee Perry’s other stuff. I believe if they had released his stuff, I wouldn’t have faded away as quickly as I did. They got Peter Waterman to produce me, and the material was just too lightweight in comparison to ‘Hurt So Good’. The Magnet album didn’t have on the genuine ‘Hurt So Good’, it was a re-recorded version; they’ll never get back Perry’s own again. Pete Waterman sings on ‘Would You Like to Swing on a Star’ in this chipmunk voice, and they had the London Symphony Orchestra…. they just didn’t have the bass beat. One thing I liked with Perry, in all the recordings I have done, and I have done so many, he just let me sing the way I want.”
Although Perry had recorded around a dozen tracks with Cadogan by the end of 1974, he delayed issuing an album of her work until the furore with Magnet died down. The imminent collapse of Trojan Records in 1975 meant that the UK issue of the album was further delayed. Meanwhile, every time Magnet issued another Susan Cadogan single, Perry made sure to let off one of his own, though all failed to find the same success as her debut.
Finally issued in November 1977, the ‘Susan Cadogan’ album captured Cadogan at her freshest, with jazz and funk influences just below the surface demonstrating the way Perry arranged material aimed at pop audiences in his particular unorthodox way.
She’s at her strongest on seductive numbers like ‘Feeling Is Right’, ‘If You Need Me’ and especially ‘Nice And Easy’, which was a popular UK single in ’77; the broken-hearted ‘Congratulations’ is also delivered well. Her haunting take of the jazz standard ‘Fever’ benefits from Perry’s perceptive arrangement, as does her version of Elvis’ ‘In The Ghetto’ and the disco anthem ‘Shame’.
Although further mainstream success failed to immediately materialise after the release of the LP, Susan reprised her career in earnest in 1981, when her Owen Brown-produced versions of ‘Piece Of My Heart’ and ‘Tracks Of My Tears’ put her firmly back in the spotlight in Jamaica and led to her being awarded ‘Female Artist of the Year’.
The following year, she united in the studio with Ruddy Thomas to record the one of the seminal tracks of the lovers rock era, ‘You Know How To Make Me Feel So Good’, which not only remained at the top of the British reggae charts for six weeks, but also made the BBC listings after being licensed to leading UK record company, Virgin.
Further popular singles for the London-based company, Hawkeye, followed before Susan recorded and co-produced a series of 45s that culminated in the widely acclaimed album, ‘Chemistry Of Love’. She continued to produce high quality work in the Nineties for both Mad Professor’s Ariwa label and Creole Records, and following the arrival of the 21st Century, worked with Jamaican legend, Glen Adams, on the superb ‘Sincerely… Susan’ and ‘The Rhythm In You’ collections.
A reunion with Mad Professor ensued in 2008, producing the ‘Two Sides Of Susan’ album, although by this time, Susan had decided to primarily concentrate on live work, touring extensively and reminding music fans worldwide of her talent, creativity and deep dedication to her art.
More recently she has reaffirmed her standing as one of the greatest female vocalist in Jamaican music history with a further three long-players, ‘Take Me Back’ (Jump Up!, 2017), ‘The Girl Who Cried’ (Grover Records, 2018) and ‘Hurt So Good – Storybook Revisited’ (Burning Sounds, 2020).
Although five decades have passed since Alison Anne Cadogan took her tentative steps in the music profession, her talent still shows no sign of diminishing, promising that there is much more great music to follow over the years ahead.
David Katz
David Katz is author of People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee Scratch Perry, published by Canongate (www.canongate.net) and Give Me Power: A Lee Scratch Perry Discography (Trax On Wax).