I don't think much of it either way, though it's a funny song to give a 19-year-old black girl to sing. It was written by Ed Cobb, who was leader of the "Four Preps" in the late 50s/early 60s. They had several preppy hits and one great B side the name of which eludes me, the A side was "Big Man". They also recorded "More Money for You and Me," a rather brilliant parody record, but I digress. (Freda Payne's "Band of Gold" was similarly weird but she was more grown up. But I digress.)
The Gloria Jones record I did know was "Heartbeat", a double-sided thumper which came out on Capitol here for Christmas 1965. And very pleased I was to pick up the album
Bah, it doesn't display the piccy.
This is the album -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Glori
for £1.50 in 1972. The "Heartbeat" on the album is a single unfaded 4 minutes 30 seconds of joy.
In 1973 I had a decent reel-to-reel recorder and access to Camden public libraries so when I saw a Gloria Jones album had come out on Motown I ordered it from the library, recorded it and thought it brilliant.
It's the one reel-to-reel (out of 2000+) I intended to get down from the loft and load onto the computer.
But I googled "Gloria Jones" "Share My Love" about 30 minutes ago and a veritable cornucopia showed up including, morphic resonance fans, the fact that "Share My Love" has just come out on CD.
And it's all over YouTube, officially. And it's as good as I remember it, if not better.
This is the title track - a couple of slight skips at the beginning -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1QLrana
She has loads of tracks from the album up on YouTube and a couple of lipsynchs to "Heartbeat"
and one live version which is rather a revelation.
Wikipedia says "Heartbeat" was recorded before "Tainted Love". I have always thought the 1964 recording date for "Tainted Love" was a bit unlikely, the recording technique sounds as if it was a little later and also the song's lyrics sound a bit creepy now, and would have been very creepy indeed for 1964.
This guy - http://everything2.com/title/Tainted%25
reckons, and he seems sure of himself, that Cobb first offered the song to the Standells (which must have been 1966 or 7) and they didn't like it so " Ed Cobb took the song and recorded it with an R&B singer named Gloria Jones and it was released in 1968 on the Champion label."
And it is on Champion, here's a label shot -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktiguw5e
whereas the album I have from 65-6 is on Uptown. If "Tainted Love" had already been recorded and released I'd have expected it to have gone on the album, it has a good dance sound it's just the lyrics that put me off and the damn album has only 10 tracks, doesn't last half an hour.
A lot of fuss over a song I don't like.
Cobb has more history than his Wikipedia entry of course; Lincoln Mayorga played piano on the Preps' records and he & Cobb formed the Piltdown Men, recorded Ketty Lester's "Love Letters", and in the late 70s formed Sheffield Labs which specialised in direct-to-disc recording.
There's more to Gloria Jones, too, of course. Her later, post-Bolan, albums I don't think are up to much. She's not to be confused with the older Gloria Jones from the Blossoms/Cookies/Raelettes, and I think there's a third Gloria Jones too.