Based on crossover success,
Gloria Gaynor might be considered the ultimate disco powerhouse, but no disco overview of any form would be correct without the presence of
Loleatta Holloway. The singer's 1976-1982 output for
Salsoul subsidiary
Gold Mind and
Salsoul proper is anthologized on this compact box, a five-disc set that essentially supplants the
BBR label's individual album reissues and two-disc compilation released a decade earlier. After the gospel-rooted Chicagoan went secular with two albums for the small
Aware label -- "Cry to Me," the title song off her second LP, put her in the Top Ten of the R&B chart in 1975 -- she and songwriter/producer husband
Floyd Smith found a more stable home at the emergent
Salsoul.
Holloway was immediately matched with producers
Norman Harris and
Ron Kersey and the team of ace session musicians at Philadelphia's Sigma Sound, charting first with the ballad "Worn Out Broken Heart" and truly hitting her stride with the dancefloor trilogy of "Dreamin'," "Hit and Run," and "Ripped Off." Those belters highlighted
Loleatta (1976) and headed a four-album run with
Salsoul that continued with
Queen of the Night (1978),
Loleatta Holloway (1979), and
Love Sensation (1980). All four LPs are expanded here with essential contemporaneous 12" mixes. Disco fanatics will no doubt gravitate toward the classic club-tailored versions carried out by the visionary likes of
Walter Gibbons,
Larry Levan, and
Tom Moulton; moreover, the format gave
Holloway more space for her signature monologues. The album versions are nonetheless immensely enjoyable themselves, and each album holds deep cuts with stunning performances, proving repeatedly that
Holloway wasn't merely a disco singer. Disc five, "Remixes and Reincarnations," collects previously released tracks dating from 1979 to 2022. There's
Gibbons' tougher and leaner
Disco Madness remix of "Catch Me on the Rebound" and
Shep Pettibone's "special club version" of
the Salsoul Orchestra's
Patrick Adams-produced "Seconds,"
Holloway's final
Salsoul recording. The remainder consists of subsequent re-edits, house and post-dubstep remixes, and so forth, with a 2001
Danny Krivit re-edit of
the Salsoul Orchestra's "Runaway" easily the closest to its source. The engrossing liner notes in the rich booklet detail the career of a singer who was mistreated in many respects, from the scrutiny she received when she replaced
Shirley Caesar in
the Caravans to the unlicensed sampling of the number one club hit "Love Sensation" on
Black Box's "Ride On Time" -- a theft exacerbated by the Italian production team using another woman to lip sync for the video and live appearances.
Holloway's catalog likewise has deserved better -- a package of scope and quality just like this one. ~ Andy Kellman
