Gloria Jones was born in Cincinnati on October 19, 1945, and moved to Los Angeles at seven. At 14 she formed the gospel group the COGIC Singers with a young Billy Preston and recorded the album It’s a Blessing. Producer and songwriter Ed Cobb signed her in 1964, and her single Heartbeat took her onto national TV and a 1965 Disneyland show. In 1965 she recorded Cobb’s Tainted Love for the Uptown label as a B-side. It flopped in America but became a Northern Soul staple in English clubs, where fans crowned her the Queen of Northern Soul.
While studying classical piano with a focus on Bach, she moved into theater, including the rock Othello Catch My Soul with Jerry Lee Lewis as Iago and the Los Angeles cast of Hair. Pam Sawyer brought her to Motown, where she wrote under the pseudonym LaVerne Ware because she was signed as a singer. She joined Marc Bolan’s T. Rex as clavinet player from 1973 to 1977 and had a son, Rolan, with him in 1975. On September 16, 1977, she was driving the Mini that hit a tree near Barnes Common; Bolan, unbelted, was killed.
- She co-wrote If I Were Your Woman for Gladys Knight and the Pips, a 1971 Grammy nominee.
- Her session credits include Neil Young, Ry Cooder, REO Speedwagon, Joe Cocker and Little Feat.
- She wrote and produced Gonzalez’s 1977 disco hit Haven’t Stopped Dancing Yet.
- After the crash, fans looted her home and she returned to Los Angeles before a scheduled court date; the coroner recorded accidental death.
- In 2010 she and her son opened a Marc Bolan school of music and film in Sierra Leone.
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