Charmaine Burnette – (Am I The) Same Girl

Reggaefied version of the Barbara Acklin classic! It was 1968 when The Maytals brought out ‘Do the Reggay’, and that same year Barbara Acklin gave us the sound of soul with ‘Am I the Same Girl’. Fast forward 13 years, and legendary UK producer Dennis Forbes had the genius to combine the pretty melody of Acklin’s hit with the pulsating new reggae sound of Lovers Rock.

In 1981 Charmaine Burnette was pretty much unknown and untested as a singer, but Forbes heard potential in her voice and gave her a chance. Summoned to London’s Chinatown where Dean Fraser and an all-Jamaican band were gathered in a basement studio, Burnette recorded her first single ‘Am I the Same Girl’, recorded in the same session as Sugar Minott’s ‘Got a Good Thing Going’. Both records were released – the former song bombed and went nowehere, the latter was picked up by RCA and went on to reach #4 in the UK charts, assuring Minott’s place in UK reggae history. The same cannot be said of Burnette, who has since faded into obscurity.