Susan Cadogan

With a delicate voice that shimmers between childlike innocence and smoldering sexuality, Susan Cadogan's vocals were the perfect expression of lovers rock. Surprisingly, she never intended to sing professionally, and thus her music career has been sporadic, but such was her talent, that Cadogan was crowned the Queen of Lovers Rock. Born Alison Anne Cadogan on November 2, 1951, in Kingston, Jamaica, she came from a musical family, and her mother had in fact released a number of gospel records during her childhood. The family emigrated to Belize in the mid-'50s, but returned to Jamaica at the end of decade, where Cadogan continued her schooling. Upon graduation, she took a job working in the library at the University of the West Indies in Mona. And there she might have remained, if not for DJ Jerry Lewis, the boyfriend of one of Cadogan's friends. Impressed by her voice, the DJ took her into the JBC studio in 1974 to record his own composition, "Love My Life," which he produced himself. Coincidentally enough, producer Lee "Scratch" Perry was at JBC that same day and was as impressed as the DJ with Cadogan's talent. Perry swiftly swooped in and took the singer under his wing, he renamed her Susan, and set to work in the studio, where he had her record an album's worth of cover songs. Although a brilliant producer, Perry had some faults; at times his highly experimental production style could totally overwhelm his vocalists, while the sheer quantity of his output meant that on occasion his more generic reggae arrangements could play havoc with more delicate or soulful singers. But Perry did Cadogan proud, restraining his more extreme impulses, while gracing the songs with arrangements that played to her and the song's strengths. The first fruits of these sessions was the...