 There is evidence too of an increasing number of one-off licensing deals featuring (mainly American) soul and R & B singers (e.g.Barbara Pennington and Betty Davis).Island also joined a growing trend amongst U.K.-based record companies at that time towards exploitation of its own back catalogue, and a substantial programme of reissues was undertaken, especially of ska and reggae titles, most of which seem to have been aimed at a small, specialist audience and did not enjoy widespread commercial success.