Loleatta Holloway – Cry To Me (1975) (24/44 Vinyl Rip)

We continue our heart-warming meeting with old-school soul records, escaping the winter's cold and sitting in front of the fireplace, hopefully. This LP has an imprint on the label saying "Promotional Mixed For Airplay." Recorded, mastered and mixed at the Sound Pit, Atlanta, Georgia.

From www.disco-disco.com:
Loleatta Holloway was born in November 5, 1946, in Chicago. Sadly she passed much too early at the age of 64 from heart failure on March 21, 2011.
The World has lost one of the greatest voices ever …
Already as a small child she grew into music and singing, as her mother had her own choir - the Holloway Community Singers. A large traveling Gospel choir with over some hundred members.

Interview:
Loleatta, How come you started with music? Was it something you wanted to do, or was it because of your family and mother?
"I think because of my mother and the choir. Yeah! Hahaha! Because I guess I was made to when I was little."
When did you start singing?
"Ohhhh, I think I was about four - you see, all of us kids had to have a song. Our own song, but the song that my mother gave me I didn't like… Hahaha! [both laughing] I wanted the song that my niece had. We were about the same age, I was a few months older than her. And she had the one song that I really wanted to sing. My mother would say "Oh no! You can't sing that one, she sings that one a little better than you." And I just wanted to sing that song, so I wouldn't sing my song."
Hahahaha!
"You know, no matter what I wouldn't sing - it was my song but I wouldn't sing it. And then this one Sunday - Oh it was so many years ago and I wish I could find a tape or a record of it - That church happened to be making a record and my niece got sick that Saturday and she couldn't come that Sunday. And so when my mother stood the choir up, when the part came for my niece I was sitting down… and all of a sudden it was this if I felt something hit from my head to my toe. When that part came, I just stood up and start singing that and start walking up through the whole church singing it and everybody in church just went "WOW!". And ever since then I was like the singer of the choir."
Do you have any other musical people in the family?
"Well, all of my family sings, they just went to other fields but they do sing."
Any one professionally except you and your mother?
"No. Not really.

In her later teens, Loleatta left her mothers choir and joined a female Gospel group named the Caravans. The group was led by Albertina Walker and it was now Loleatta made a professional career out of her tremendous voice.
She was singing with the Caravans for a while before she ventured off and put together her own traveling act - Loleatta Holloway & the Review. It was about this time she also met Floyd Smith, who became her manager and later, even her husband. It was Floyd who first recorded Loleatta under her own name in 1971. As she say herself; "Right, he started recording me and he got me with the first recording… 'Rainbow '71'. [A cover of a Curtis Mayfield song Gene Chandler had a hit with in 1963] Well, he put this one out on his own, a label called Apache Records or something."
Had you recorded something else before that?
"Gospel. Gospel with the Caravans."
So, that was actually you first recording experience…
"Oh, well - my first experience was like I said when I was like 4 or so and I was on this record in church."
Oh, I didn't understand that one was put out on record as well?!
"Right. It was a record. Because I was a little girl and I used to hate to hear it - because I sounded like a woman. To me I sounded like an old woman and I was just little girl. And everybody would play that record and every time I found one I break it up, but I wished I had one now so I could hear it. But every time somebody had a record they'd say; 'Oh listen…' Oh, I hated it! I hated the way I sound, 'cause they said; 'She sound like woman' and I was a little girl and I just couldn't stand that. Hahaha!"
So you had this great voice already back then?
"I had a loud voice, I'd say that!" Hahaha [Both laughing]
Have you ever worked or been part of any groups except for the Holloway Community Singers and the Caravans?
"Oh, yes I sung a little while with Jesse Dickson. I sung a little while with him, other than that - that was it."
After releasing Loleatta's first record under her own name, "Rainbow '71", Floyd got Loleatta into this play - a Broadway musical that came to Chicago called 'Don't bother me I can't cope'.
Loleatta continues; "Floyd had a producer, the owner of GRC - Michael Thevis, to come to see the play. When he saw me in the play he wanted to record me. And he told me, he said; 'If I didn't sell a million, he would make sure I would because he would buy a million himself.' Hahaha! [Both laughing] Mike Thevis gave me a deal with his Aware label, out of Atlanta, Georgia. I made a couple of records there and two albums. I maybe had another one in, that never came out - but things happened and we were only with that company for a short while."
The two albums Floyd and Loleatta did for Mike Thevis' "Hotlanta Sound" Aware label was Loleatta (1973) and Cry to me (1975). …

Tracks
01. Cry to me 05:45
02. I know where you're coming from 03:18
03. The show must go on 03:51
04. The world don't owe you nothing 03:10
05. Just be true to me 03:17
06. Something about the way I feel 03:23
07. I'll be gone 04:06
08. I can't help myself 03:47
09. Casanova 03:42
10. H.E.L.P. M.E. M.Y. L.O.R.D. 02:48
Total time: 37:03

Musicians
No info