Gloria Jones
| Gloria Jones | |
|---|---|
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Gloria Richetta Jones |
| Born |
October 19, 1945 Cincinnati, Ohio, US |
| Origin | Los Angeles, California |
| Genres | R&B, northern soul, gospel, glam rock |
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter |
| Instruments | Piano, vocals, clavinet |
| Labels | Minit, Motown, EMI |
| Associated acts | Marc Bolan, T.Rex |
Gloria Richetta Jones (October 19, 1945, Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, California. She recorded the 1964 song "Tainted Love", later a hit for the British synthpop duo, Soft Cell. She was the girlfriend of glam rock artist Marc Bolan of the band T. Rex until his death in 1977.
Jones was born in Cincinnati, and moved to Los Angeles, California, at the age of seven, where she first started singing. Jones' first taste of fame came at the age of 14, when, while still at school, she formed with Frankie Kahrl and Billy Preston the successful gospel group the Cogic Singers, with whom she recorded the album It's a Blessing. Although she remained with the group for some four years, she soon found herself drawn into the Los Angeles pop scene.
In 1964, Jones, in her late teens, was discovered by the songwriter Ed Cobb. Signing with Cobb's Greengrass Productions, she recorded her first hit record, "Heartbeat Pts 1 & 2," which Cobb wrote and produced. She toured the United States, performing on several American television programs, footage of which still exists. One performance occurred at a Rock and Soul show in Disneyland in the summer of 1965. "Heartbeat" became a rhythm and blues tune which was recorded later by Dusty Springfield, Spencer Davis and many other artists.
By then, Jones had recorded other songs for Uptown Records, a subsidiary of Capitol/EMI. Included among these was another Cobb-written song, "Tainted Love". Marc Almond of the duo Soft Cell, whose cover version of "Tainted Love" reached #1 worldwide, originally heard the song in a nightclub in Northern England. So strong was Jones's following there that she was proclaimed the "Northern Queen of Soul." Jones also recorded an album for the Uptown label entitled Come Go with Me which was released in 1966. Jones studied piano, and acquired an advanced classical degree primarily in the works of Bach. In 1968, she joined the cast of Catch My Soul, a rock and soul version of the play Othello, which included cast members Jerry Lee Lewis, The Blossoms, and Dr. John. During the summer of 1968, she performed in a play called Revolution, at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. That winter, she joined the Los Angeles cast of Hair, the musical. Eventually, she was to meet Pam Sawyer, who asked her to write for Motown Records. Jones and Sawyer were amongst the second string of writers at Motown, but still wrote for such artists as Gladys Knight & the Pips, Commodores, The Four Tops and The Jackson 5. As Jones was also initially a singer for the label, protocol demanded a pseudonym, so for some of her earlier co-writes she used the name LaVerne Ware.
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