Wild Honey - Sow The Seed Of Love (1974)

After her 1971 Bulgarian single 'Love Me Like A Lover' went the same way as her previous releases, Tina Charles teamed up with Kim Keene and Mally Page and formed the female trio Wild Honey. As Charles was already signed to MAM Records as a solo artist, they took on Wild Honey, and their first attempt at a single was to pair Charles' last single for them, 'Baby Don't You Know Anymore', with a new Wild Honey track, 'He's My Sugar', just so that any fans out there would know that the two were connected. The first real Wild Honey single was 1972's Motown-esque 'There's No Stopping Us Now', and this was followed the next year by a re-release of 'He's My Sugar', but this time as an actual Wild Honey record, with 'People Of The Universe' on the flip. However, for the b-side of their 1974 single, 'Everybody Knows', and also for 1976's 'Baby I'm Your Man', the girls were relegated to backing vocalists on their own records, with an uncredited male singer taking the lead on both songs. The music was fairly typical of the period, being a sort of cross between early-'70s contemporaries Pickettywitch and Charles' own future within 5000 Volts, but the group's need for acceptance saw them try out a variety of musical styles as they searched for one that might break them out of obscurity. None did, of course, but they did produce some enjoyable music, with some pursuing a sub-glam rock direction, while others could be seen to hint at the disco-danceable sound that was starting to break through in the nid-70's. They only produced five singles in their very short career, and so to round off this album I've added Charles' collaboration with Martin Jay as Airbus, with their 1974 single 'Fly Away'.

Track listing

01 There's No Stopping Us Now (single 1972)
02 Sow The Seed Of Love (b-side of 'There's No Stopping Us Now')
03 He's My Sugar (single 1973)
04 People Of The Universe (b-side of 'He's My Sugar')
05 Gotta Find A Way (single 1974)
06 Everybody Knows (b-side of 'Gotta Find A Way')
07 A Mother For My Children (single 1975)
08 Have A Little Mercy (b-side of 'A Mother For My Children')
09 Why Didn't I Think Of That (single 1976)
10 Baby I'm Your Man (b-side of' Why Didn't I Think Of That')
11 Fly Away (single as Airbus 1974)
12 Susanna In The Summer (b-side of 'Fly Away')

Tina Charles - Hot Hits (1973)

As I mentioned in the last post from Tina Charles, in the early 70's she got a job recording vocals on the 'Top Of The Pops' and 'Hot Hits' series of albums, where anonymous artists covered contemporary hits. In his early days Elton John had also earned extra money by doing this (see his own post here), and Charles found herself not only covering songs by female vocalists, but she was the go-to singer to tackle the teenyboppers of the period, such as Donny Osmond and Michael Jackson, who were only around 13 or 14 at the time, and whose voices had not yet broken. Over a few years she covered scores of songs, which were spread over a variety of the these records, such as 'Parade Of Pops', 'Best Of '72', 'Smash Hits', 'Pick Of The Hits', and the two most popular of these cash-in records, Hallmark's 'Top Of The Pops' and mfp's 'Hot Hits'. As an example of her work in this field, here are fourteen of her covers of hits from the early 70's, all housed in a suitably retro cover

Track listing 

01 Song Of My Life (Petula Clark) 
02 Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep (Middle Of The Road)  
03 Let Me Be There (Olivia Newton John)
04 The Witch (The Rattles)
05 Paper Roses (Marie Osmond)
06 Lookin' Through The Windows (The Jackson 5)
07 Banner Man (Blue Mink)
08 Puppy Love (Donny Osmond)
09 Won't Somebody Dance With Me (Lynsey De Paul) 
10 Doctor My Eyes (The Jackson 5)
11 Come Back And Shake Me (Clodagh Rodgers)
12 Ben (Michael Jackson)
13 Why (Donnie Osmond)
14 You Can Do Magic (Limmie And Family Cooking)

Tina Charles - Nothing In The World (1974)

Tina Charles was born Tina Hoskins on 10 March 1954, in Whitechapel, London, England, and got her start is show business at the age of 15 singing on TV commercials, after which she wound up signing a deal with CBS Records. Her first single, the Northern soul-leaning 'Nothing In The World', was produced by Alan Hawkshaw and featured Elton John on piano, although further singles like 1969's 'In The Middle Of The Day' and 'Good To Be Alive', along with 1970's 'Bo-Bo's Party', didn't trouble the charts. They did, however, get her noticed by the BBC, and she began appearing on The Two Ronnies TV show, and then scored slots on tours by Tom Jones, Mud, and Engelbert Humperdinck. She shifted over to Gordon Mills' MAM label in 1971, who issued the single 'Baby Don't You Know Anymore', and as a sideline she got a job recording vocals on the 'Top Of The Pops' and 'Hot Hits' series of albums, where anonymous artists covered contemporary hits. She released the 1974 single 'One Broken Heart For Sale' on Bell Records, and put in more studio time as a session vocalist, memorably joining Linda Lewis to sing backing on Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel's 1975 hit single 'Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)'. She had previously sung in an unrecorded band called Northern Lights with Martin Jay, and the pair reteamed in 1975 under the name Airbus and issued a single, 'Bye Love', which caught on once DJs flipped it over to find the disco-fied 'I'm On Fire' on the other side. The song was reissued as a single in it's own right, with that band rebranded as 5000 Volts, and the song headed toward the top of the charts around the globe, reaching the Top Five in the U.K. and the Top 30 in the U.S. 

Charles quickly left the group for a solo career and teamed up with producer Biddu, who was red hot following the chart success of Carl Douglas' massive hit 'Kung Fu Fighting', and he decided to cast her as a powerful disco diva, which was a role that she filled perfectly. Her first single in this new guise was 1975's 'You Set My Heart On Fire', and while that song was moderately successful, it was her next release, the monumental disco anthem 'I Love To Love (But My Baby Just Loves To Dance)', which reached number one on the U.K. singles charts in February 1976, and scored in the upper reaches of many other countries. It even won a Juno Award for best-selling international single of the year, and an album of the same name was released in March 1976, going on to achieve similar success to the single. A second album, 'Dance Little Lady', which was made up of the same mix of up-tempo disco tracks and ballads, followed before the end of 1976, and it spawned two hit singles, the title track and 'Dr. Love'. To see how she eventually reached the top of the charts, here are those early, unsuccessful singles from the late 60's and early 70's, which show that she had the talent, but just needed someone to take her under their wing and spur her on to greater success. 

Track listing

01 Nothing In The World (single 1969)
02 Millions Of Hearts (With A Single Player) (b-side of 'Nothing In The World')
03 In The Middle Of The Day (single 1969)
04 Rich Girl (b-side of 'In The Middle Of The Day')
05 Good To Be Alive (single 1969)
06 Same Old Story (b-side of 'Good To Be Alive')
07 Bo-Bo's Party (single 1970)
08 Madame, Madame (b-side of 'Bo-Bo's Party')
09 Baby Don't You Know Anymore (single 1971)
10 Joe (b-side of 'Baby Don't You Know Anymore')
11 Love Me Like A Lover (single 1971)
12 Smarty Pants (single 1973)
13 One Broken Heart For Sale (single 1974)
14 Great Male Robbery (b-side of 'One Broken Heart For Sale')