Gloria Jones answers a question during her interview at the Ponderosa Stomp's 3rd Annual Music History Conference at the Louisiana State Museum in the Cabildo in New Orleans on September 24, 2010.
Gloria Jones is perhaps best known as the singer that recorded the original version of "Tainted Love", later covered by the band Soft Cell as a number one hit, but that does not begin to describe her life in the entertainment industry. Jones recorded her first album at 14...
more »Gloria Jones answers a question during her interview at the Ponderosa Stomp's 3rd Annual Music History Conference at the Louisiana State Museum in the Cabildo in New Orleans on September 24, 2010.
Gloria Jones is perhaps best known as the singer that recorded the original version of "Tainted Love", later covered by the band Soft Cell as a number one hit, but that does not begin to describe her life in the entertainment industry. Jones recorded her first album at 14 with gospel group the Cogic Singers, worked as an actor in the musical "Hair", toured extensively off the strength of her own solo work, and wrote music for Motown Records all before she was 25 years old. Jones then joined the glam-rock band "T. Rex" as a backup singer, eventually beginning a relationship with lead singer Marc Bolan, which ultimately ended in tragedy after a car accident killed the singer and severely injured Jones. The couple had one son together.
The Ponderosa Stomp is an annual music festival held in New Orleans since 2002 that celebrates the uncelebrated names in American musical history. The festival spotlights musicians who have contributed to the American roots musical canon in various genres, from rockabilly to soul to rock and roll to jazz to experimental. For two nights of the year these mostly forgotten names perform to an audience of aficionados whose memory has not faded and turn back the clock with blistering performances of the hits that did or (in the case of the regional musicians that plugged away unknown to the world at large, as well as those whose songs were recorded to acclaim by other musicians) did not make them famous.
In addition to the two nights of performances the Ponderosa Stomp Foundation (the non-profit founded by the eccentric Dr. Ira Padnos and his coterie of like minded music fanatics the Mystic Knights of the Mau Mau) also produces two days of the Music History Conference.
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