Loleatta Holloway - Love Sensation (Salsoul)

Loleatta Holloway was born in Chicago, Illinois in November 1946, and began her career singing gospel music with the Queen of Gospel, Albertina Walker and the Caravans. In 1976 she began singing on disco productions (mainly on Salsoul Records), and was responsible for some classics like "Love Sensation" or "Relight My Fire" by Dan Hartman. In 1984, Holloway left Salsoul Records and began to work on an album, "Crash Goes Love". Unfortunately it was never completed and only two singles were released for Streetwise, the title track and "Heartstealer". During the following years, many of her old hits were adapted by House producers like Black Box who used the original acapellas of her songs over new melodies. According to her, she never earned a penny of most of these productions. The only time she was paid and credited was on the Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch song "Good Vibrations" (1991), which also sampled some of her vocals for "Love Sensation". Loleatta Holloway is still performing on stage and if you ever get the chance to see her, don't miss it!"Love Sensation", the album, features the fantastic title track in three guises, although two are virtually indistinguishable. That this song has been sampled in so many ways so many times is a testament to its appeal. Holloway's vocals are in full bloom here (and in Black Box, and in Marky Mark, etc etc), but the complexity of this Dan Hartman composition is lost in the sampling. It is a rousing dance floor classic that seems not to have been included in many of the "Best-Of" disco lists that grace the appendices of the burgeoning popular dance books out lately. I think perhaps it should.

The album as a whole is, like Holloway's previous "Loleatta," an assortment of dance tracks, bluesy ballads, and a few midtempo ballads. Bobby and Cecil Womack's "Short End of the Stick" is a fine uptempo piece, too short at 3 1/2 minutes. There are several other Womack pieces, eccentric projects that the singer throws herself into.

There are several Norman Harris, Philly-based tracks. Holloway belts them out in robust fashion.
"Love Sensation" grew out of the Holloway-Hartman collaboration that also produced his "Relight My Fire." There are no other Hartman-produced songs on the album. A Shep Pettibone remix of "Love Sensation" shows the songs' timelessness but does not equal the original Tom Moulton mix.

This is a re-release of her original 1980 album, with 2 additional tracks. The listing for tracks 2 to 8 is completely incorrect on the release, below is the correct sequence of titles (they follow the original LP's A-side + B-side).


Tracklisting:

01 Love Sensation (6:05)
02 Long Hard Climb To Love (4:35)
03 Short End Of The Stick (3:25)
04 I've Been Loving You Too Long (4:43)
05 Two Became A Crowd (5:22)
06 Dance What 'Cha Wanna (5:11)
07 My Way (5:26)
08 I'll Be Standing There (4:50)
09 Love Sensation (A Tom Moulton Mix) (6:33)
10 Love Sensation (Remixed By Shepp Pettibone) (7:46)

No link.