Audrey Hall

Audrey Hall (born c. 1948 in Kingston, Jamaica) is a Jamaican reggae singer known for both her solo work and collaborations. Hall began her career as part of the duo Dandy & Audrey with Dandy Livingstone. In 1969, they recorded Morning Side of the Mountain, which became a hit and led to an album of the same name. The duo released a second album, I Need You, on the Trojan label. Livingstone also produced Hall’s early solo recordings for his Downtown label. By 1971, Hall had moved to Trend Records, run by Barry Class, and released the single Getting Ready For A Heartache with her own composition M.Y.O.B. Leave Me Alone as the B-side. Despite some airplay, no further material was recorded for Trend, and Hall requested a release from the label to move to New York. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Hall worked extensively as a backing singer alongside her sister Pam, contributing to albums such as Jimmy Cliff’s Give the People What They Want and Peter Tosh’s Mama Africa. Hall made a successful solo comeback in 1986 with One Dance Won’t Do, an answer record to Beres Hammond’s What One Dance Can Do, produced by Donovan Germain, which reached the UK Top 20. She followed this with Smile, her biggest UK chart hit, and The Best Thing For Me. In the same year, she returned to duets with Heart Made of Stone and the album Dynamic Duo, recorded with former Paragon singer Don Evans. Hall continued recording with Germain for his Germain and Penthouse labels, and released the album Reggae Zones in 2001, maintaining her presence in reggae music across multiple decades.