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Blackwell put together a diverse group of musicians to play some stylistically wide-ranging songs for the first of Jones' new albums, 1980's Warm Leatherette, but the combination was not guaranteed to work. To begin with, Sly & Robbie had been given some of her disco albums by Blackwell but the pair didn't actually listen to them. Meanwhile, Wally Badarou, an African-French funk and jazz fusion keyboard player who had also guested on M's single 'Pop Muzik', heartily disliked disco; and guitarist Barry Reynolds came from more of a rock background and was attracted to playing with Sly and Robbie but had heard one of Jones's disco albums and thought it was 'awful'.

Ready For Take Off
The resulting album certainly marked a change, however. The title track was a cover of a single by post-industrial synth outfit The Normal, while Jones lowered her voice from her previous soprano, sounding severe and chastening on a version of The Pretenders' 'Private Life'. That single reached No 17 in the UK charts while Warm Leatherette itself peaked at No 45. It was on the follow-up album, 1981's Nightclubbing, that Chris Blackwell's collective approach really took off.

The title track of Nightclubbing, a song written by Iggy Pop and David Bowie, is a tongue-in-cheek look back at Jones' disco days. Over deep piano and electronic blasts she sings in stern, ironic tones, particularly on the refrain, 'Oh, isn't it wild?'.

'Walking In The Rain', a cover of a 1978 song by Flash And The Pan, has a brooding autumnal atmosphere and there is a potent chemistry between the musicians. Sly and Robbie play a sinuous groove punctuated by Reynolds' subdued power chords, Badarou's sweet, trumpet-like keyboard lines and percussionist Uzziah 'Sticky' Thompson on guiro, with each element having its own space in the mix, and the singer proclaiming herself 'Feeling like a woman, looking like a man'. Jones is always the focal point and in command of each song.

There's a good deal of contrast in the material. Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla's 'I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)' was introduced to Jones by Jean-Paul Goude, and is transformed into an audacious mix of reggae and tango with British jazz accordionist Jack Emblow evoking both Buenos Aires and Paris.

All Stars
Then there's the song 'Pull Up To The Bumper', which the singer co-wrote with Sly & Robbie and Dana Mano. This is funkier, with Jones running expressively through a series of lascivious bluesy metaphors. Meanwhile, a version of Sting's 'Demolition Man' emphasises the ambiguous gender of the singer and rides out dramatically on electronic sequencers and synths, before Nightclubbing resolves on a version of Marianne Faithfull's 'I've Done It Again'. It's sung beautifully by Jones in a sweet, high register.

Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespeare, Barry Reynolds and Wally Badarou went on to be Compass Point All Stars, then house band of the studio in the Bahamas where Warm Leatherette and Nightclubbing were recorded in the early 1980s. Island Records owner Chris Blackwell thought they were 'the best band in the world' while Jones would later say that it was on Nightclubbing where she 'became the me I worked so hard to be'.

Look up the album online and you'll find it falling into a baffling number of categories, ranging from Dub to Art Pop – like many great albums it sounds oddly timeless and of itself. Perhaps that is why although it charted at No 33 in the UK, in terms of singles only 'Pull Up To The Bumper' breached the UK Top 75, while 'Walking In The Rain, 'I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)', 'Demolition Man', 'Use Me' and 'Feel Up' achieved modest success elsewhere.

But although it failed to top the charts, Nightclubbing has been recognised as having enormous influence. When so many female musicians and singers in the music industry were pressured to conform to stereotypes, Grace Jones showed that it was possible to avoid them all, and for a woman artist to be 'an original, impossible beast'. On this breakthrough album, she projected herself and her image on her own terms – which she has continued to do throughout her career.