Biography
Brown Sugar formed as a lovers rock trio featuring Caron Wheeler, Carol Simms and Pauline Catilin. Recording sessions started under Dennis Harris at Eve Studios in Brockley Rise, south London, England. The year 1977 brought reggae chart supremacy via the buoyant ‘Black Pride’, their treatment of Barbara Lewis’s 1963 Billboard chart-topper ‘Hello Stranger’, together with the resolute ‘I’m In Love With A Dreadlocks’. Those sides surfaced on the recently launched Lovers Rock imprint, a title that subsequently named the entire subgenre. Once the group exited the roster, Harris issued ‘Free’ in a pointed reversal, then ‘Forever My Darling’ and ‘Do You Really Need Me’, all earmarked for a planned Brown Sugar album. At Studio 16, producer Winston Edwards guided the singers, who drew inspiration from Pat Kelly’s hit ‘I Am So Proud’ to deliver their own version of the Impressions standard; the release carried the credit Pauline And Brown Sugar because it spotlighted Catilin’s lead. Autumn 1978 yielded ‘Confession Hurts’. Midway through the 1979 Echoes Awards Show performance, the Well Pack musicians traded places with the trio, who then supplied the instrumental backing; Wheeler, Simms and Catilin also received the readers’ vote for Best Vocal Group in the weekly magazine. Subsequent Edwards collaborations produced ‘You And Your Smiling Face’, ‘Suddenly He’s Gone’ and ‘Runaway Love’. Output slowed by 1983, although ‘Go Now’ on El Jay still registered a modest success. Wheeler and Catilin returned to session work in 1984, adding harmonies that included Keith Douglas’s ‘Cool Down Amina’. Late-decade efforts turned toward solo paths: Wheeler joined the Funki Dred sound system with Soul II Soul and secured UK number-one status in 1988 with both ‘Back To Life (However Do You Want Me)’ and ‘Keep On Moving’. Recording extensively as Kofi, Simms frequently revisited earlier Brown Sugar material. The Brown Sugar name reappeared in 1996 with the striking ‘Sensimilla Babe’, cut in Jamaica by Anthony Malvo and Anthony Red Rose, even if the track was widely regarded as an alias for Chevelle Franklin.
Singles