‘I feel as though I've been in chains': the bittersweet life of lovers rock legend Mari' Pierre

In December 1978, Marie Pierre was at No 1 in the UK reggae chart with the lovers rock classic Walk Away, a beautiful tearstained lament on a troubled relationship. Her 1979 debut album Love Affair, powered by another enduring scene song in Choose Me, remained one of Trojan's best-selling albums well into the 1980s; Pierre, with her crystalline multi-octave voice, seemed destined to follow her contemporary, Silly Games singer Janet Kay, into mainstream pop-reggae success.
But in the 46 years since, Pierre has never released another album. A career that promised so much has – despite TV work and successful backing singing gigs with Robert Plant, Donna Summer and Chaka Khan – been one of frustration and thwarted ambition. Misfortune, mistrust and mistreatment, personal and professional, have sidelined her. 'I feel as though I've been in chains,' she says on a video call. 'I've been anchored for no good reason.'
Pierre (born Marilyn, and now spelling her name Mari') grew up in Clapham in south London, one of six siblings. Her parents had moved from Guyana in the 1950s, where her 'quite strict but lovingly strict' father had been a well-known musician and tap dancer under the stage name Little George. Pierre's career started without his knowledge: 'He felt I was still of a tender age and knew what the music industry might expose me to.'
When she was 14, her boyfriend Syd – her soon-to-be husband, whom she had met on the bus in a game of truth or dare – came to pick her up for a date. He was impressed when he heard her singing in the bath. 'I didn't realise he was in the house,' Pierre laughs. 'Once we went out, he said: 'I've got to introduce you to my sister's boyfriend, because he has a band, and they rehearse in a basement.' The sister's boyfriend was Dennis Bovell, still at school himself but starting the road to his illustrious career as a reggae and dub pioneer with his first band, Matumbi. Bovell became an important figure in Pierre's life: a musical teacher who 'was like a big brother'.
'She was like family – very close and very dear to me,' says Bovell. 'And she's always been a very powerful singer.' Pierre would sneak into Bovell's all-boys school in disguise to lay down tracks in the school studio, including her first key song Cry, released under the name Angelique. 'He got me a hat and a jacket and some trousers,' she says. 'Nobody knew that I was a girl. He did say to me: 'Don't open your mouth!' We had a good rapport. He got me and I got him. He stretched me: I couldn't sing like that before him. He protected me, and I felt secure around him.'
Pierre was gaining confidence. After a spell rehearsing with Billy Ocean above a bingo hall in Dalston, east London ('Billy used to see me home and stay for dinner – he loved my mum's cooking') she joined three-piece vocal group Super Pack, who played American army bases in the UK with the Stylistics and Fontella Bass and spent two years performing in Switzerland. By the time she returned home, she had married Syd: 'We were best friends, young sweethearts.' But all wasn't well. Pierre wrote Walk Away after a fight: Syd had stormed out, leaving her at home with their baby, and she was watching a Bette Davis film. 'And she said something that just resonated with me: 'You were the cause of all of my tears but you never wiped one of them away.'' She scribbled down the lyric, came up with a melody and took it to Bovell, who in turn took Pierre to Trojan Records. 'I envisioned it as a soul song. But Dennis converted it to lovers rock.'
Bovell was helping pioneer the lovers rock sound, a gentler, more romantic take on British reggae. Love Affair, now enjoying a new reissue for the first time in 30 years, is still considered one of the genre's high points; Pierre co-wrote several songs to go with Bovell's tracks and lush production. 'A great record', says Bovell. As the title suggests, many songs are not about romance but infidelity: Syd had had an affair. 'They're all based on true stories,' Pierre says. '[The affair] was damaging, because she was my best friend. I'm no longer sorry. It's all wisdom. If you don't live it, you'll never know it.' Did Syd ever hear the songs? 'Oh, he knew, yeah. There was the big guilt trip. But once bitten, twice shy.'
Even before the album's release, issues mounted. Pierre says she was not properly credited by Bovell for some tracks on Love Affair; Bovell says that isn't true. Pierre says she was also refused permission to release material she had recorded at about the same time: 'Everyone was earning theirs, but I was sitting on the sideline faithfully waiting.'
Bovell counters: 'If they weren't released, it was because they weren't ready.'
What is clear is that parts of the lovers rock scene itself didn't treat Pierre well: lacking support and taken advantage of, she has been ripped off by promotors over the years. 'At one point she said: why am I doing this?' says Bovell.
And with Bovell's eclectic career taking off as he worked with a host of artists such as the Pop Group and the Slits, it left Pierre somewhat lost without her mentor. 'I just felt that I couldn't work with anybody else but him,' she says. 'Because I trusted him implicitly.'
'We kind of grew apart,' Bovell says, admitting that even though he took Pierre to play shows in the US and Japan, he became too busy to record with her. 'She didn't particularly want to work with other producers. And I couldn't just work with her alone – I had to go and get my career.'
The situation knocked not so much Pierre's confidence, but her trust in the industry. 'I haven't really had any faith in anybody else since,' she says. That goes for romantic relationships, too. She calls Syd: 'My first love, and my last. I've been out and dated. But wisdom has taught me I don't want the extra baggage.'
After some failed collaborations, Pierre took to backing singing and TV work in the 1980s, including singing the theme tune to Channel 4's popular sitcom Desmond's. She also performed gigs as Damaged Daughters, a three-piece that included the 80s soul singer Princess. There were frequent gigs as in-house singer on The Terry Wogan Show and Channel 4's Club X, where she sang with Donna Summer, Chaka Khan and Randy Crawford.
Most notably, she sang on Robert Plant's 1988 album Now and Zen. She didn't know who Plant was when she got the call, but did such a good job that Plant sent her a platinum disc as a thank you. 'It's proudly hanging on my wall. And I felt more humbled and well received getting that from Robert Plant because all the years I've been in the business, I haven't received that recognition from my own.'
By the time she finished a 12-year run fronting Supremes tribute act the SOS Band, she was disillusioned again, and her only shows over the last decade have been lovers rock reunion nights. 'But it's not what I really want to do. I could be doing that and earning, but why? Unless I've got new material?' Pierre has a positive disposition – 'I don't get consumed with bad feelings or malice' – but everything has clearly taken a toll. 'I felt those knocks,' she says. 'I feel that happiness or joy is only for a moment, because you don't know who's waiting around the corner to steal that from you.' She also suffers from arthritis, and is going through an emotionally painful, costly, lengthy probate dispute with some family members. 'It's affecting my creativity. I'm not finding the joy in life.'
But it might not be too late. Days later, Pierre rings me to say our interview 'just made me think, well, let's do this'. She contacted Bovell; not only did they 'have a heart to heart', he sent her some tracks, old and new, to work on with a view to releasing an EP.
'Because we're like a family, we can start as we desire,' Bovell says. 'I've invited her to do her lyrical magic, because she does come with some really good lyrics.' Pierre also got in touch with some old connections: they are planning to go into the studio in the spring. 'All I had to do was contact certain people, and, boy, were they ready to go.' She sounds so happy. 'So, it's not the end of Mari' Pierre,' she says. 'I'm back on the horse and willing to ride!'
The reissue of Love Affair is out now on Cherry Red

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