Tony Waddington (songwriter) then offered it to the demo musicians, provided that they would become an actual group. The musicians agreed, were named The Rubettes, and "Sugar Baby Love" became a UK number one hit in 1974, also reaching number 37 in the US chart. They wrote and produced all of the Rubettes' subsequent UK hits – nine Top 50 hits in all between 1974 and 1977 – winning an Ivor Novello Award as Songwriters of the Year, and also reached the UK Top 10 with "Sugar Candy Kisses" by Mac and Katie Kissoon. They set up their own record label, State Records,
Baby, Come Back (the Equals song) reached the top 10 in Belgium and the Netherlands) the song was re-issued in the UK on 1 May 1968 and reached #1 in the UK Singles Chart on 3 July 1968 spending three weeks there. In all the song stayed in the UK Top 75 for 18 weeks. It also charted at number 32 on the Billboard Hot 100. Eddy Grant himself released a new version of the song in 1984, 1985 and 1989, without much impact on the charts. The song was covered by Pato Banton in 1994 who was joined by Robin and Ali Campbell of UB40.