Gloria Scott, who released her first album in almost 50 years last
September, will be touring the UK this year.
Dates announced so far include:
14 Mar - Colchester Arts Centre, Colchester
16 Mar - Cambridge Junction, Cambridge
17 Mar - 229, London
18 Mar - The Crossing Digbeth, Birmingham
Scott got her start after being discovered by Sly Stewart (Sly & The
Family Stone) in the early 60s whilst still at High School in San
Francisco. She was born in Port Arthur, TX, on 27 Feb 1948 and raised in
Houston before moving to San Francisco in her early teens
Stewart wrote and produced her first recording in 1964 aged 18 as Gloria
Scott & The Tonettes "I Taught Him Pts 1 & 2" released on Warner
Bros. which sunk without trace. She then auditioned for The Ikettes but
left soon afterwards as she didn't respect Ike Turner's strict discipline and fining regime.
In the early 70s she met Barry White whilst performing as a backing
singer who signed her on a 7 year contract and got her a deal with Casablanca and produced her debut album
"What Am I Gonna Do". Unfortunately for Scott, at around the same time
White's star was rising and he was having hit after hit and Casablanca,
being a start-up label at the time, failed to promote the album and White
wasn't around to help as his career rise was stratospheric, and that was
just about that for Gloria after the album didn't sell well.
She did record another album with H.B. Barnum which never got released
and then became a backing singer for Mary Wilson (The Supremes) on her
self-titled debut album in 1979.
Fast forward to the 90s and she was living and singing in Guam (in the
south Pacific) (where she lived for 8 years) when a tourist approached her
saying that he knew her name and relayed the fact that her album, and one
song from it in particular (which had only been released as single in
Australia) was very popular on the UK/European rare soul scene. That song
of course being "(A Case Of) Too Much Love Makin'" which was covered by
Lisa Stansfield on her 1993 album "So Natural".
Then in the mid 2000s she was approached by Andrew McGuiness who promotes
the Baltic Soul Weekenders in Germany to perform at the weekender, which
she has done every year since 2008.
McGuiness learnt that she had some unreleased recordings in the can and
encouraged her to release them (along with new material) on a new album which she did last year and
"So Wonderful" was released on 30 Sep by Acid Jazz.
Below are three very short clips of an interview with Gloria from her YouTube channel posted in Nov '22.
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