Althea & Donna’s ‘Uptown Top Ranking’ Soared To No. 1 In The UK 45 Years Ago
It was 45 years ago that Donna Reid and Althea Forrest’s iconic single Uptown Top Ranking hit number one on the music charts in the United Kingdom.
The Rocksteady hit continued to gain momentum because as late as 2020, it was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) after racking up sales of more than 200,000 digital copies in the UK.
The legendary music producer Joe Gibbs was the mastermind behind Uptown Top Ranking, which was Althea and Donna’s response to Trinity’s 1977 hit Three Piece Suit.
The song topped the Radio Jamaica Radiffusion (RJR) and Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) music charts for multiple weeks in 1977. It also ascended to the top of the British national charts in February 1978 and the two girls later became the first Jamaican female duo to be signed to a major record label.
Althea and Donna went on to release a full album in June 1978 on the Front Line Label featuring tracks such as No More Fighting, Jah Rastafari, Make A Truce, Oh Dread, the title track Uptown Top Ranking, The West, Jah Music, If You Don’t Love Jah, Sorry and They Wanna Just.
The song Uptown Top Ranking has been covered at least nine times by both famous and not-so famous recording artistes across the world. It was covered by British singer Estelle and Joni Rewind in 2002; Tight N Up in 1989; Black Box Recorder in 1998; Ali & Frazier in 1993 on the Arista label; Scout Niblett in 2004 and Junior Jazz in 2003.
The rhyme schemes of Uptown Top Ranking were also used in 1978 by Italian singer Ilona Staller in her song Pane Marmellata E Me, which translates to Jam, Bread and Me, as well as German group Tandem in the 1982 song Ein Typ Wie Du which translates to A Guy Like You.
British duo Alfred & Donald also sampled the song in their track which they titled Up Town Top Banking. It was also interpolated in Abs Breen’s 2002 UK Top 10 hit, What You Got.
It is not clear though, whether the duo has ever received royalties for the cover versions and sampling of their song.
Althea and Donna started out singing on a sidewalk in Kingston before they were spotted by the late singer Jacob Miller, who took them in his Mercedes-Benz to Joe Gibbs Studio in Cross Roads at Retirement Crescent to record the song. They were accompanied by Donna’s father who also went on tour with the girls as they were underage at the time.
They also went to the UK to promote the song and appeared on Top of the Pops a popular television show, but their biggest event was in their homeland in the form of the One Love Concert in April 1978 where they served as the opening act.
Uptown Top Ranking was released by Frontline Records, a subsidiary of Virgin Records. The song climbed to number two on the Irish charts, and peaked at number 23 in Belgium and 24 in the Netherlands.
Althea who now lives in New York, is originally from Hughenden in St Andrew, and is a Queens School old girl. Donna, who originally hails from Hope Road, lives in Florida and is a St. Andrew High School for Girls past student.
Their last major performance in Jamaica was at Rebel Salute in 2018.