Gloria Jones: Share My Love [SURVIVAL RESEARCH]

Why you'll love it

Survival Research brings back Gloria Jones's second album, cut for Motown in 1973. PopMatters gave it nine out of ten and called it a rare gem from the Motown catalogue.

This edition

• Stereo mix

About the album

Gloria Jones has two of the great footnotes in pop history: she sang "Tainted Love" years before Soft Cell got to it, and she later became Marc Bolan's partner and a member of T. Rex. In between, she made this lush, deep soul album for Motown, and it's every bit as worth knowing.

Tom Thacker produced and Paul Riser handled the arrangements, giving the songs the full, sweeping Motown strings. Jones co-wrote nearly everything, sharing the title track with Janie Bradford and "What Did I Do to Lose You" with Pam Sawyer. "Share My Love" stretches out to almost seven minutes, "Tin Can People" is tight and funky, and "So Tired (Of the Way You're Treating Our Love Baby)" and "Baby Don'tcha Know (I'm Bleeding for You)" are full-blooded heartbreak. The album got its first official CD issue in 2009.

She dedicated the album to her friend Lee Jacobs, and then Bolan called asking for help finishing a record in Germany. She went, and sent her management a telegram that read "Sorry, I'm in love," which, as resignation letters go, is hard to beat.

Also at Kops: more Gloria Jones on vinyl · browse 70s Soul On Up

Tracklist

Listen

On Survival Research (cat# SVVRCH117), a reissue of the 1973 album.