Hurt So Good reggae star Susan Cadogan talks Top of The Pops, The Ramones and Lee 'Scratch' Perry ahead of Portsmouth headline show | Interview

Her father was a minister who could ‘sing quite heartily when he preached’, while her mother was a classical singer.

And as a girl, she also sang in the church choir. But it was through her older sister’s records that she fell in love with soul music.

It was as a young woman in 1974 that her singing talents came to the attention of the maverick producer and musician Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. At his legendary Black Ark studio she recorded an album’s worth of material. It was also here that he renamed her ‘Susan’ Cadogan, which has stuck ever since.

One of those tracks, a cover of the Millie Jackson soul hit Hurt So Good, was released on Perry’s own label, Perries, to little acclaim. It eventually got picked up by the Magnet label in the UK and reached number four on the charts leading to Susan coming to the UK and making a memorable appearing on Top of The Pops.

When asked if she thought she’d still be singing that song 50 years on, she says with a laugh: ‘I didn't think I'd be singing it in 1975 – that was quite a shock to the system!

NOW READ: The Tiger Lillies’ From The Circus to The Cemetery tour is coming to Portsmouth

‘Just by chance, going into a studio, and just by chance recording a song called Hurt So Good, to hear a few months later, oh, you have to come to London because your song is on the top 40. I say: “No, no way, what's going on?”

‘I had been happily recording for Lee Perry – I didn't know who he was. I know he tried to release Hurt So Good in Jamaica, but there was a little battle going on. I didn't think any more of it until I started to get the phone calls, and then, voom! The next thing you know I was in London and on the television, just like that.

‘To look back on it now, the old videos... I didn't set out to be a singer. I loved to sing, I enjoyed it. I would lip-sync to all my favourite songs, like The Supremes and ting.’

While never becoming the huge star her fans believe she could have been, Cadogan is revered in reggae circles.

Follow-ups to Hurt So Good became the victims of record company machinations and she left the music business – but couldn’t put it behind her for good.

‘In late 1975, the record company Magnet, flew me over again to record an album with Peter Waterman (later of Stock, Aitken and Waterman fame) and later they tried to get this guy Pete Ashfield to record me, but nothing happened.

‘They put out a lot of 45s, but back in the day, when you had two records out at the same time, it wasn't good because they would compete with each other. (Reggae record label) Trojan had Perry's music and Magnet had their music I'd done with Pete Waterman. I was officially signed with Magnet at the time, and every time they would put one out, Trojan would put one out. So there was a battle between Nice ‘N’ Easy, and Love Me Baby, which was my follow-up to Hurt So Good.

‘Then there was Lee Perry's Congratulations and Fever, competing with How Do You Feel The Morning After and Keep It Coming, which were really a different feel and beat and rhythm.’

And with Susan receiving next to nothing financially for her biggest hit, she returned to work as a librarian.

‘Anyway, it happened, so I came and went out of the industry, from ’75 I didn't sing again until ’81, and then I didn't record again until 1998.’

While Perry became renowned for his unusual practices in the studio, Susan recalls a ‘respectful’ man during her time working with him.

SEE ALSO: Golden Touch Festival is bringing the best in new and up-and-coming music to The Wedge

‘I always picture him in those meshy undershirts, sleeveless, and in his shorts, with a whole lot of jewellery and stuff. He was quite short – I'm tall, but when he heard me sing at first he kind of took to me.

‘He didn't even know my name when I recorded Hurt So Good – it was him who called me Susan, my real name is Alison, but he called me Susan. He was very respectful and he'd tell everyone hanging out at the studio – the musicians like Bunny Clarke, the singer for Third World, Glen Adams, Family Man from the Wailers – they were always hanging around on this little wall outside the studio and he would tell them: “Leave my singer alone!”

‘And when I was recording for him, he'd lock them out of the studio. When I started recording for him, Love My Life, that was my first record, I asked him could they turn out the lights, because I don't like them to watch me. I felt shy or self-conscious.

‘He used to be up in the control room and he'd say: “Rolling Sue, lights!” then switch off the lights, he'd roll the track and I'd sing. He would never stop me – that's the thing with Perry, he didn't stop me. Sometimes when you're recording they stop you: “Oh, you've gone up there,” or “Don't sing that that way”, blah, blah. He didn't stop you, he just let me sing.

‘After that I'd sing it again, so he'd have two takes of each song, and most of them he'd put them together, which is why you see on his recordings the voices don't always match exactly – but they're pretty close!’

Perry was also partial to incorporating found sounds and any instrument he could lay his hands on into the recording process.

‘I remember when he came down some little steps into the recording area, he picked up his little son's flute, and he'd blow it, and that's the flute on Nice ‘N’ Easy – anything that would make a sound, he'd use it.

‘He would dance and mix while mixing, he’d mix standing up – he'd fling up a switch, and he'd spin round and turn, and even if the voices didn't match, he didn't care – he'd make his own sound.

‘The trick was that I had this soft voice and he had these heavy rhythms, and the mix that he got, so many people have tired to record me and nobody can get that sound on that album which is still selling today.’

​She last saw him in 2016 when they both appeared at the Skamouth Festival. He died in August 2021 aged 85.

‘Lee Perry named me, and the UK made me,’ she adds.

A regular on the festival and touring circuit pre-Covid, some of the shows she has recently performed were rescheduled from 2019. Her appearance at the International Ska Festival in London over the Easter weekend was her first performance in four years.

Last year, after coming out of the pandemic Susan was waylaid by health problems.

‘I couldn't walk because my back gave out! I've been having back worries since about 2003/4 and it finally gave out, so I had a big operation on my back and now I'm bionic!’ she chuckles. ‘And my knees are giving me trouble too, so I've been using a high stool on stage. I can walk out, and I stand sometimes, but I need to sit and stand.’

What’s it been like for her to return to performing?

‘The crowd was very responsive, and everyone said how wonderful I looked and blah, blah, which I didn't think! Some guy was there at the very first show and he said he cried to see me because he had seen me 48 years ago on Top of The Pops – and to think he was seeing me in the flesh and singing, I thought that was very nice. I didn't think I was wonderful, I thought I looked like an old witch, I'm telling you!’ she howls with laughter.

Susan is now a US resident, and while she has no plans to record a full album, she has done various singles and guest appearances, including something that may take her fans by surprise.

‘I recently recorded for a German producer – they're doing a reggae tribute to The Ramones, so I recorded two tracks. I think they're coming out in October.

‘They changed the titles, so Rock'n'Roll High School was Rocksteady High School,’ she sings the reworked chorus and laughs. And Blitzkrieg Bop became Jamrock Dub.

‘They're quite easy to sing, and it's more fun than ever. A DJ from Jamaica played on it too, and I rewrote the lyrics. It was nice – I had fun and it worked out well.

‘I don't have any more plans to record, but if something comes up and I'm able, I'm quite open to it.

‘Right now I still sound like I'm younger – I'm 72 this year, but right now I can still sing like I'm back in ’75.’

For her show here in Portsmouth Susan has been working with the locally-based Ska Choir, who will be rerecording Hurt So Good with Susan, and joining her on stage too.

‘In ’75 I recorded a version of I Can See Clearly Now – it's on my album, Doing it Her Way, so I'm going to do it in the show. After nearly dying – I was in hospital for 34 days, I wanted a song to open my show, and it came to me: “I can see clearly now that the rain has gone, now that the dark clouds of pain have gone,” and it has this big background voice, so the ska choir is going to sing it with me.’

As to her biggest hit’s meaning, she reflects: ‘Nothing good comes easy in life, if it comes easy, it goes just as easily – like my career in the beginning! You have to work hard and get hurt before you can really reach where you want to be and have it.

‘So I say, it hurts so good because in the long run, if you wait it will be good. Not every time, but... My career didn't take off because I didn't pursue it, but if I had stuck it out, my life might have been very different. But I wouldn't want to change a thing – it can go just the way it has.’

Susan Cadogan is at The Lens Studio, Portsmouth Guildhall on Friday, doors 7pm. Tickets £20.70.

She will be backed by EMZ All Stars (formerly EMiliYAH and The MightyZ All Stars), who will also be performing a support set of their own, and The Ska Choir from The Southern Ska Collective.

Go to portsmouthguildhall.org.uk.​​​​​