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')
