Tasha Thomas

Born in Jeutyn, AK, disco diva Tasha Thomas grew up with a father employed by the Atomic Energy Commission and a mother who had been ordained a Pentecostal minister. Early on she played organ and sang in her mother’s church services, and after relocating to New York City in the late ’60s to chase a music career she joined another choir through one of her mother’s contacts. That connection produced backup vocal work on Louis Armstrong’s 1968 album What a Wonderful World, after which Thomas built a thriving career as a secular session singer. Across the decade she lent her voice to recordings by Stevie Wonder (Innervisions), B.B. King, James Brown, Grover Washington Jr., Cat Stevens, Carly Simon, Edgar and Johnny Winter, Jim Croce, and numerous others. At the same time she appeared regularly in New York jazz clubs, and in 1975 she made her Broadway debut as Auntie Em in the original production of The Wiz. The stage engagement brought her to the attention of the independent disco label Orbit, which issued her first solo single, “Shoot Me (With Your Love),” in 1978. Strong club play prompted Atlantic to acquire the track and sign Thomas for an album; Midnight Rendezvous appeared in 1979 and yielded two further dance hits, “Hot Buttered Boogie” and “Street Fever.” Her health soon declined after a cancer diagnosis, and she spent much of the early ’80s fighting the illness until her death on November 8, 1984, at age 33.