Loleatta Holloway Dies At 64

Written by Manu Ekanayake Tuesday, 22 March 2011 17:50

News -

Disco diva Loleatta Holloway, who was sampled by the likes of Black Box, Marky Mark and who worked with everyone from the Salsoul Orchestra to Terry Farley, has died at the age of 64.

Her manager, Ron Richardson, announced on Twitter that she passed away on Monday 21st March, after a brief illness.

Despite her professional beginnings in 70s soul, Loleatta Holloway will be remembered most for her disco hits like 1977’s Runaway, 1979’s Vertigo / Relight My Fire (about 8 mins in) and 1980’s Love Sensation. But her biggest hit was probably Black Box’s Ride On Time. This Italian house track was a huge hit worldwide in 1989 – even going to no.1 in the UK – but its vocals were actually samples of Ms Holloway’s (and producer Dan Hartman’s) Love Sensation.  It took a lawsuit for them to get paid and credited, one of the first lawsuits to reward the original creators of sampled material.

She was also sampled by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, in their 1991 hit Good Vibrations, but the infamously Calvin-clad popstar gave her a full vocal credit, as well as a share of the royalties.  More recently, Whitney Houston sampled her in 2009 on Million Dollar Bill.

BnB spoke to Wild Geese co-producer, former Mixmag scribe and major label A&R man Frank Tope, who laments her passing, ‘Surely more than any other singer, Loleatta took the testifying out of the church and into the disco, where her greatest performances could and still can create something close to religous fervour on the dancefloor. And a decade after disco, whether through sampling or through acid house, DJs digging back to classics like Love Sensation and her stunning cameo on Dan Hartman's Relight My Fire, she found a whole new generation of fans.

‘Her voice soundtracked some of the greatest nights of my youth and I'm genuinely saddened to hear of her death. RIP Loleatta, thank you for the music and for helping multiple generations of dancers to be, “strong enough to walk on through the night and find the day on the other side.”’