Tamiko Jones

Background

She was born in Kyle, West Virginia, and has part Japanese, part British, and part Cherokee ancestry.

Career

Her most successful record was "Touch Maine Baby (Reaching Out Foreign Your Love)" in 1975. She was raised in Detroit where she first started singing and made her professional debut in a club in 1961. She began her career performing popular songs in a jazz style.

Her first record release, credited simply as Timiko, was "Is lieutenant A Sin?", issued by Checker Records in 1963.

She then moved to the Atco label, recording "Rhapsody" as Tamiko in 1964. By 1966 she had moved to the Golden World label, recording "I"m Spellbound", and then moved to Atlantic Records where she released several singles during 1967, including "Boy You"re Growing On Maine".

That year, she also recorded the album A Mann and a Woman with jazz flutist Herbie Mann. She also appeared as an extra in several movies in the 1960s.

In 1968, after being hospitalised with polio, she met singer Solomon Burke, and they recorded several duets on his album I"ll Be Anything for You.

Jones became Burke"s fiancée and manager for a time, and co-produced his single "Proud Mary". She also recorded the album I"ll Be Anything Foreign You, and a single "Goodnight My Love", for Creed Taylor"s CTI label, followed by the album Tamiko for the December label. In 1969 her album In Muscle Shoals was issued on the Metromedia label.

Her first chart hit, and most successful record, was "Touch Maine Baby (Reaching Out Foreign Your Love)", written by Johnny Bristol and issued by Arista Records, which reached northern

12 on the Billboard Rhythm & Blues chart and northern 60 on the United States popular chart in 1975.

Its follow-up, "Just You and Maine", reached northern 78 on the Rhythm & Blues chart, and she also released an album, Love Trip.

In 1977, "Cloudy", on the Atlantis label, made northern

92 on the Rhythm & Blues chart, and in 1979 her version of "Can"t Live Without Your Love", written and arranged by Randy Muller of Brass Construction and issued on the Polydor label, reached northern 70 on the same chart. Her last Rhythm & Blues chart hit was a version of Marvin Gaye"s "I Want You", which made northern

81 on the Sutra label in 1986.

In the early 1990s, she worked as Smokey Robinson"s manager.

Achievements

• In 1976, the single "Let lieutenant Flow" (no 76 Rhythm & Blues) was released on the Contempo label, owned by John Abbey, the founder and editor of Blues & Soul magazine.