Thelma Houston (born May 7, 1946) – Ride To The Rainbow (1979)
The title track from Houston's final album on Motown, this overlooked disco funk jam featured Melvin "Wah Wah Watson" Ragin on guitar and James Gadson on drums.
Thelma Houston is a singer who released her first single in 1966 but didn’t make it big until a decade later, when her 1976 cover of “Don’t Leave Me This Way” by Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes went to #1 on the dance, R&B and pop charts.
Thelma Jackson was born in Mississippi, and raised in Long Beach, California. She married in 1963 and had two children, then joined the Art Reynolds Singers gospel group in the mid-60s and was discovered by songwriter and producer Jimmy Webb. He produced her debut album Sunshower in 1969 for ABC-Dunhill Records, which peaked at #50 on the R&B album charts.
Houston subsequently signed with Motown, and released a self-titled LP in 1972, but the album did not chart. Her second LP for the label, Any Way You Like It, came out October, 1976 and featured tracks recorded between 1972-76.
After the Boston Record Pool unanimously reported the album’s second cut was blowing up dancefloors, it was selected as the LP’s first single, and released on December 2, 1976. “Don’t Leave Me This Way” was a disco cover of a song first released by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes on Philadelphia International Records the previous year in 1975.
Houston’s version proved to be a smash hit, first hitting #1 on the Hot Club Play and R&B charts in February, 1977, then going to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 that April. It won the Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female for 1977.
Besides “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” the album also featured another phenomenal cover, “Don’t Know Why I Love You.” This cut was a disco soul version of Stevie Wonder’s “I Don’t Know Why” (1968), which was originally released with “My Cherie Amour” on its B-side, then re-issued with the sides reversed when “My Cherie Amour” became a hit.
On May 22, 1979, Houston released her ninth album, Ride To The Rainbow, which would turn out to be her last for Motown. It was produced by Hal Davis, arranged by Arthur G. Wright, and issued on the Tamla imprint in the U.S. and Motown overseas.
Its overlooked title track was a disco funk jam for the ages, reminding us to “Hop on board the neon suns and blast off to a disco rainbow in the sky!”
The album’s superb backing band featured Funk Brothers Eddie “Bongo” Brown on congas and Melvin “Wah Wah Watson” Ragin on guitar. Other players included David Shields and Eddie Watkins, Jr. on bass; Alan Oldfield, Reginald “Sonny” Burke, and Sylvester Rivers on keyboards, Bloodstone drummer Melvin Webb on percussion; and the great James Gadson on drums.
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