Susan Cadogan
Artist. Reggae, roots
- Active
- 1974-present
- Sunrise
- November 2, 1951, Kingston, Jamaica
- Also known as
- Alison Anne Cadogan, Alison Cadogan
Susan Cadogan is a singer whose version of "Hurt So Good," produced by Lee Perry at the Black Ark, became a British pop hit in 1975.
Born Alison Anne Cadogan in Kingston, she was working as an assistant librarian at the University of the West Indies at Mona when she recorded her first single, "Love My Life," for the broadcaster Jerry Lewis. Perry, impressed by her voice, recorded an album's worth of material with her, renamed her Susan, and had her sing Millie Jackson's "Hurt So Good"; she was about twenty-two. Licensed in Britain to Dennis and Yvonne Harris's DIP label and then to Magnet, it reached number four on the pop chart and, as Dennis Bovell remembered it, "stayed up there for about a month."
She signed to Magnet, and Pete Waterman produced her first album for the label. In 1983 she had a duet with Ruddy Thomas, and from 1992 she made three albums with Mad Professor, beginning with Soulful Reggae, and toured Germany with him; in 2001 she made two albums with Glen Adams.
Last updated October 21, 2026
Connections
- Ruddy Thomas (duo partner)
- Lee "Scratch" Perry (producer)
- Mad Professor (producer)
- Glen Adams (collaborator)
- Black Ark (session work)
Notes
- Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 442.
- "Susan Cadogan," Wikipedia (mirror), accessed October 21, 2026, https://www.chise.org/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Susan_Cadogan.html, citing Dave Thompson, Reggae & Caribbean Music (2002), and Colin Larkin, The Virgin Encyclopedia of Reggae (1998). Angus Taylor, "Interview: Susan Cadogan," United Reggae, December 19, 2011, https://unitedreggae.com/articles/n793/121911/interview-susan-cadogan calls her the "Jamaican librarian-turned-singer."
- Wikipedia (mirror), "Susan Cadogan." On the song and her age: Taylor, "Interview: Susan Cadogan."
- Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 442, quoting Bovell, who went on to work with the Harrises.
- Wikipedia (mirror), "Susan Cadogan." Taylor, "Interview: Susan Cadogan."
- Taylor, "Interview: Susan Cadogan." On the Ruddy Thomas duet and Soulful Reggae: Wikipedia (mirror), "Susan Cadogan."
