Doris Troy ranks among the rock era’s most gifted one-hit wonders, climbing into the Top Ten in 1963 with “Just One Look” while also cutting numerous other strong pop-soul tracks for Atlantic from 1963 through 1965. She composed the bulk of her own songs—often credited under the name Payne—and had already supplied material for fellow artists plus supplied backing vocals alongside Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick and Cissy Houston on various New York soul sessions before launching a solo career. Her Atlantic recordings prove more melodically ambitious and stylistically wide-ranging than most contemporaries, fusing gospel, girl-group, blues, and pop ingredients into a distinctive New York soul texture. After “Just One Look” she never returned to the charts, yet she found steadier recognition in England, where she performed from time to time and where the Hollies included her “What’cha Gonna Do About It” on their debut album. Relocating to Britain, she made a 1970 album for Apple that featured contributions from George Harrison and Billy Preston. Throughout the early 1970s she added backing vocals to records by British rock acts, most prominently the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, and released two further albums of her own. In the 1980s she took the lead role in the stage musical Mama I Want to Sing, which drew directly on her own life. The production toured successfully, and Troy stayed connected to it until 1998. She kept performing in Las Vegas until her death from emphysema on February 17, 2004.
