Gloria Jones

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Gloria Jones is an American singer and songwriter, born in 1945 in Cincinnati, Ohio. At the age of seven she moved to Los Angeles, where she began to sing. As a schoolgirl she formed the gospel group The COGIC Singers with Billy Preston, among others. The Los Angeles pop scene then drew her in. In 1964 the songwriter Ed Cobb discovered her, and with his Heartbeat she had her first hit.

Music and breakthrough

In the mid-1960s she recorded another of Cobb's songs: Tainted Love. In America it went largely unnoticed, but in the north of England it became a favourite in the northern soul clubs, where young people danced all night to fast American soul records. There Jones was nicknamed the Queen of Northern Soul. She later wrote for Motown, including If I Were Your Woman for Gladys Knight & the Pips. She also appeared in the musical Hair, and she had a classical piano training behind her.

Influence

From 1973 to 1977 Jones sang and played clavinet in T. Rex, Marc Bolan's glam rock band. The two began a relationship and in 1975 had a son. Bolan produced her album Vixen (1976). Tainted Love got a second life in 1981, when Soft Cell made a synth-pop version of it that became a worldwide hit. In this way the song shows how a forgotten soul record grew, by way of the British dance floor, into a classic.

Listening

• 
  Tainted Love · Gloria Jones, 1964
  Apple Music ↗

Discography

Studio albums

• 1966Come Go With Me
• 1973Share My Love
• 1976Vixen
• 1978Windstorm
• 1982Reunited

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• Mixtape 7: The 1980s^NL Reader

Mentioned in other articles

• Northern soul GenreGloria Jones's Tainted Love (1964) was one such record; Soft Cell later made a synth-pop hit out of it.

See also

• Come Go With Me
• Share My Love
• Windstorm