Miss Jones

When Marc Bolan died in 1977 it didn't take long for the sick jokes to start circulating round my school playground, like "What was Marc Bolan's last hit?" "A tree." Ho ho!

If we'd been a bit older and hipper we would have known that the woman behind the wheel of the car that tragic night was also the person responsible for one of the biggest Northern Soul anthems of all time. That was Gloria Jones and "Tainted Love" of course. Gloria had moved to England because of her cult success on the Northern scene and somehow ended up joining T. Rex where she sang and played keyboards, then became romantically involved with Bolan and had a child with him. Her solo career before that hadn't amounted to much hit-wise, in addition to "Tainted Love" in 1964 she recorded a handful of singles for the Minit and Uptown labels, none of which did anything. Her earlier backing vocal work was a different story though, as a member of The Dreamers and then The Blossoms she sang on Etta James' "Good Rocking Daddy" Sam Cooke's "Chain Gang" The Ronettes' "Be My Baby" and Bobby Pickett's "Monster Mash" amongst others.

"When He Touches Me" was one her Minit singles and when I hear this I wonder why she never made it big (or at least bigger), she certainly had the vocal chops of other, more famous Southern Soul belles. This is a classic deep ballad that's been recorded by a few other soul acts and Gloria's version is about the best I've heard. This is a song that requires intense passion and she uses her big, powerful voice to wring out every ounce of emotion in it. Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be an album of her 60s material (she didn't record a whole lot anyway) but you can get this on "Deep Soul Inferno." She made a couple of albums in the 70s, one of which was produced by Bolan, but they're not in print anymore and I've no idea what she's up to these days.

[Download]
When He Touches Me - Gloria Jones