Loleatta Holloway joined her Mom to sing with the Holloway gospel choir in Chicago when she was a child. She left school and undertook various meaningless jobs, whilst still singing Gospel.
She joined a Gospel group called the Caravans and whilst on tour with them she met Aretha Franklin, who toured with them for a while.
Hir first, self titled album was recorded in 1973 and her second two years later.
It wasn't until a few years later that Loleatta really started to make a big noise on the Disco and Soul scene. In 1977 she recorded arguably her biggest hits 'Runaway' and 'Hit and Run'. These were followed a couple of years later by 'Love Sensation'.
Daniel Davoli's Black Box sampled this track in 1989, and without getting clearance, he found himself successfully sued by Loleatta for copyright infringement. The record still remained the biggest selling track of the year and opened up Loleatta's music to a larger audience. The same record was legally sampled by Marky Mark and the Funky bunch in 1991. She has also been sampled by Alicia Keys for Whitney Houston's track 'Million dollar bill', as well as various dance music artists.
Loleatta continued to perform throughout the 80's and 90's up until taking a year out following a triple heart bypass in 1996.
I have recently heard warm tributes from some of dance musics biggest names including Norman Jay and Little Loius Vega, both of whom had the pleasure of meeting and working with her.
For me, there are 3 stand out tracks of Loleatta's and i'm sure that they are the pick of most of her fans. God bless you Loleatta Holloway, you will be sorely missed!
1/ Hit and run
2/Love Sensation
3/ Runaway
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