Loleatta Holloway - 1946-2011
American Singer
Added to the album by Lee, A Wonderful Man
Like me, Lee, the man who added Loleatta Holloway to the Wonderful Women album is a little bit obsessed by disco and the disco era. If ever there was a person who personified the word disco, Loleatta is it. And if ever there was an artist whose records I could listen to all day and all night, Loleatta is it.
You may remember in the entry for Gwen McRae (Wonderful Woman No. 89), I wrote about how her music reminded me of the club night Out of the Gloom which I ran in Manchester, England for five years... well, the same can be said of Loleatta, mixed in with a host of other great memories such as The Southport Weekender, Body & Soul and Lee's own night Northern Disco (with which I also had some involvement). Her music is ingrained in the happiest section of my memory bank, a very wonderful place indeed.
Put her right up at the top as one of the greatest voices in the world.
Carol Williams, Singer and Friend
After a childhood filled with singing in gospel choirs, Loleatta first signed a recording contract at the beginning of the 1970s. Her first release was an emotional, deep, soul-filled cover of the Curtis Mayfield track Rainbow, retitled Rainbow '71 to determine it's year of release. Throughout the 1970s, she released a string of soul and disco records, including a number with the Salsoul Orchestra. Notable releases include Hit & Run, Love Sensation, Runaway and Re-light My Fire with Dan Hartman (all of the above are firm favourites of mine).
The soul, the emotion, the disco - everything about Loleatta Holloway.
Gilles Peterson, DJ and Record Label Owner
During the 1980s, Loleatta's career continued, as she moved into recording house tracks. And then in 1989, the dance group Black Box had a massive hit with Ride On Time, which heavily used sampling from Love Sensation (though Loleatta was not credited on the release). She went on to have another dance hit with the band Capella's release Take Me Away. And in 1991, she appeared on the single Good Vibrations with Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.
Her career spanned into the 2000s, giving her four great decades in the music industry. She released nine albums, as well as her amazing discography of singles. She was adored by disco lovers the world over and her records remain in the bags of DJs every Friday and Saturday night, a few bars of Runaway and the dance floor is full of arms raised in the air - a truly wonderful sight!
I was genuinely saddened when I heard of her death last year, we did a spotlight tribute night on the radio show I presented at the time, it seemed right that we marked the passing of someone whose records we played consistently and someone who had been another part of the soundtrack of our lives. The thing is with a voice like hers, they never really die, they go on living through music and the happiness, the shared joy and the expression of emotion the music brings into our lives... and that is incredibly wonderful.
I would always put myself in the situation of the song: if this was me in this situation, what would I do? What would I say? So when it started I’d just go straight from the top of my head whatever I felt from the moment. In ‘Dreamin’’, for example, that is the stuff I would’ve said to another woman.
Loleatta Holloway
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