The Soulettes

Vocal trio, which comprised of Rita Marley, her school days friend Marlene Gifford and her cousin Constantine 'Vision' Walker. One day Rita found out that The Wailers always passed by their house everyday. She decided to talk to them and when they passed by the next time, they sung "What's Your Name" by Sam & Dave. Peter Tosh invited them afterwards to come to the studio. In 1964 The Soulettes began recording for Clement "Coxsone" Dodd at Studio One, for example "Friends And Lovers" with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer as backing vocals. " Bob Marley assists Coxson Dodd by auditioning and coaching new singers, including the before unnamed group called the Soulettes, who reminded him on Motown's The Marvelettes. Rita Anderson of that trio pairs with Bob on a duet called "Oh My Darling." They make occasional stage show appearances, but concentrate primarily on daily rehearsals to polish their sound, influenced in particular by the harmonic style of The Impressions. From 1965 till the early 70ies, they also worked with Lee Perry, getting distributed in the UK as well.The group had lost an original member, so Nora Dean joined Rita and Cecile Campbell. They released just a hand full of releases in the period 1968- 1970 and half of those only being released in Jamaica. Regrettably, as the group was about to tour Canada in support of their hit, "Let It Be", Nora was taken ill and had to be replaced by Hortense Lewis.In 1969 the lineup was revised: Rita Marley, Hortense Lewis and Cecile Campbell. In 1970 they released an LP called "Jamaica Magic" with the mento singer Lloyd Wilks. The LP includes tracks include 4 familiar mento selections (like Banana Boat (Day-O) / Star-O), plus 8 originals written by Cornel Lumiere. The music is best described as easy listening as played by a jazz combo. The last recording found in the web is based in 1973.