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Part two of the Forgotten Girl Groups series - Natalie and Tara do a deep dive on girl groups, Marine Girls and The Jones Girls. Learn more about Record Store Society.
Creators & Guests
What is Record Store Society?
It's time to visit your favorite local record store; a place where music fans spend countless hours flipping through records, discuss the minutia of favorite b-sides, best live albums, and anything else music-related. If you have any questions, you can always find Tara and Natalie behind the counter ready to give a recommendation or tell you about a recent discovery. Join Record Store Society, a music podcast, biweekly to see what’s new or just to hang around for some music talk.
Recently, I saw this YouTube video about girls in rock bands and how oftentimes they are asked, what's it like to be a girl in a band? And it was talking about how rock and roll started as, like, a man's world and women were the fodder or subject matter of said rock songs. Mhmm. And one of the first bands they talked about in this video was Fanny.
Natalie:Oh, nice. As they should.
Tara:Yeah. 1 of or actually the first all female rock band signed to a major label. Yeah. That's super cool. Which we learned and talked about in one of our many discussions on the subject matter of forgotten girl groups.
Natalie:Yeah. Was this a recent video?
Tara:I don't think it I don't know when it was made. I don't think it was very recent. No.
Natalie:I'd be curious to see that and see who else they talk about.
Tara:Yeah. They talked about a lot of women in in rock, but yeah, The Runaways, Tina Weymouth, as, you know, she's the basis of Talking Heads. Oh, hi. How are you? I'm Tara.
Natalie:I'm Natalie.
Tara:Take a look around. We'll be over here talking about some really cool girl groups. Yeah. But I was thinking it's been a minute since we've talked about forgotten girl groups in the store.
Natalie:Yeah. And there's plenty of them, you know, that deserve to be remembered and praised. You know, I'd be up for another round of that. Let's do it. Who do you have in mind?
Tara:Well, you know, last time I talked about the blossoms with the beautiful Darlene Love, and that was more in the sixties realm. I decided this time to dive a little bit into the eighties, early eighties, with a band called Marine Girls.
Natalie:Cool.
Tara:So let me set the scene though on Marine Girls, because there was some changes afoot in the music industry around when they popped up. British punk music began mid seventies. Sex Pistols are often credited as being the first British punk band, and punk music became a way for British youth to express themselves and their anger and push back against the establishment. And then it was like the do it yourself or DIY attitude from New York combined with the anger of the unemployed British youth, and it created essentially this British punk wave, I guess. So bands like The Clash, X-ray Specs were kind of singing on sociocultural ideas, and then you had, like, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Wire and The Slits.
Tara:And then across the later seventies, 1977, 78 evolved more towards post punk sounds with bands like Joy Division from Manchester. And then again, parallel to punk, you had this industrial culture with bands like Throbbing Gristle or Cabaret Voltaire. So we're inching into the eighties here and pop was reimagined and punk was splintering into all these different subgenres. You had skinheads and anarchy type punks like Crass, and then Adam and the Ants, and Susie and the Banshees were more goth. And then you had these independent music labels, record labels like Fast or Factory Records, Postcard Records, 4AD, they were cultivating their own aesthetic and pushing this new indie world of pop and DIY music.
Tara:This new indie world pop was inspired heavily by the sixties and were kind of, I guess, pushing their way, pushing against this whole, like, Thatcherite eighties doom, I guess, if you wanna call it that. Like I said, these indie labels were popping up all over the UK. Postcard Records, Creation Records, Wham. They were creating a huge mark on indie pop with shoegaze, garage punk, and other eighties subgenres that still inspire indie music as we know it today. But before Riot Girls took back punk from the boys, the eighties post punk wave brought us bands such as the Pastels and Tallulah Gosh and Dolly Mixture and Marine Girls as part of a new eighties wave featuring predominantly female vocalists.
Tara:Their sound was a lot less abrasive, often featuring charming, amateur sounding vocals with jangly guitars and sometimes upbeat percussion. But here's where we really begin this journey of getting to know this somewhat forgotten girl band that I have chosen for today, and that is Maureen Rose. Marine Girls is a quartet formed in 1980 by 2 friends from the 6th form, which I had to Google. That's like the 12th grade here in the states, Tracy Thorne and Gina Hartman. Originally, Tracy Thorne just played guitar, and Gina Hartman was the lead vocalist and percussionist.
Tara:Traci overcame her shyness, and she also started singing too by the time they started making records. They were later joined by Jane Fox on bass and her younger sister, Alice, on vocals and percussion. They're often referred to as one of the pioneers of twee music despite being classified as post punk by most people in the eighties, early eighties. But just a quick note here too, before marine girls, Tracey Thorne actually started her musical career in the post punk world with a group called Stern Bops playing guitar and doing some backup vocals. But back to Marine Girls, representative of this, like, DIY culture of the time, Marine Girls self produced and self released cassette in 1980 called A Day by the Sea.
Tara:This features mostly unavailable songs, such as Getting Away From It All, Lorna, Hour of Need, and Harbors. Only 50 copies were made. Let's hear a clip of Night Day Dreams from A Day by the Sea.
Natalie:It's so, like, bubbly and mellow and happy. A lot more than
Tara:I I
Natalie:would have expected.
Tara:Definitely. Yeah. I mean, this is again, they self recorded this. These, you know, young teenage girls, they met in 12th grade, essentially, you know? So it's it's really cool that they
Natalie:did this. Yeah.
Tara:Yeah. But A Day by the Sea was recorded mainly at Jane's house in her front room after school on a reel to reel tape recorder. Gina says, it was so DIY. No wonder it sounds like it was actually recorded underwater. We had fun doing that.
Tara:I remember it involved a lot of eating boil in the bag cod and butter sauce and raw flapjack mixture. Ew. Jane's and Alice's house was good to record at because they lived with their dad, and he wasn't in that much after school, and we could walk to her house easily. So it was just 10 songs recorded in December of 1980 with another 2 songs added later to complete a 12 songs on this cassette. But, yeah, you can hear the sixties influence and how it almost perfectly encapsulates this feeling of being a teenage girl.
Tara:They were authentic and very feminine. In 1981, they went on to record an album called Beach Party, which was recorded in a garden shed by Pat Birmingham and released on Enphase Records, then rereleased by Dan Tracey of Television Personalities for his label, Wham Records. Then, of course, released again later from Cherry Red Records in 1987 and 2014. And just another side note, Tracey Thorne actually recorded her first solo LP in that same shed by Pat Birmingham. So I love that.
Tara:Back around.
Natalie:Yeah.
Tara:Yeah. And in true Marine Girls fashion, the songs on Beach Party dealt with the age old problems, difficult boyfriends, love, loneliness, and of course, all the symbols of the the sea and its mysteries. Let's listen to a bit of marine girls from each party.
Natalie:That's adorable. How charming.
Tara:Marine Girls discusses the pressures of girlhood and using those gentle words, try so hard, try to be what every girl should be before then listing those expectations as not too smart and no opinions, bright and pretty, sweet and willing. I love that. That's so good. So smart, man.
Natalie:I like how catchy and and light it is. I guess when I think about post punk, it makes sense. Sure. But when I think about post punk, I always think more I don't know. The music just feels more introspective.
Natalie:You know?
Tara:Yeah. Keeps and moody.
Natalie:It's like approaching brooding. Right? It's like we're getting into that new wave territory. But this is leaning really heavy into just the the catchy simplicity of it, You know? Very feminine.
Natalie:Not too overcomplicated. Very, very girly.
Tara:Girly.
Natalie:Yeah. It's great.
Tara:Tracy Thorne has said in an interview for the Kiedis, which I don't know. I always say the, but it's spelled like quiet us. I I say. I'm not sure if that's exactly how you pronounce that music org, but they have great stuff. If you guys don't know about it, check it out.
Tara:And I'll link this particular interview in our store website because it's a really great interview with Tracy Thorne that everyone should check out. She says, we used to get up on stage in front of mostly male crowds who'd come to see a rock gig, and we'd quietly but defiantly play our heartfelt songs about boys we loved or boys we despised, mixing in strange and ever so slightly random references to the sea.
Natalie:Now that's punk. That's pretty punk song.
Tara:Right? Yes. Definitely. The band's simplistic approach to structuring songs often centering on repetitive riffs and sometimes spoken vocals works really well. And in a lot of ways, like you just said, marine girls were considerably more punk than some of the aggressively charged bands that came before them.
Tara:And they just disregarded these conventions and were unafraid to sound a little unpolished. And they were they were, like I said, authentic and true to themselves. But, yeah, they created an incredibly distinctive singular sound that wasn't flashy or, you know, excessive. And it was unapologetically melodramatic, you know, such as a teenager would be.
Natalie:Right.
Tara:Gina from Marine Girls has said, punk was really important to me and Tracy. We bonded over that music. We would never have even formed the band without that DIY rough trade ethic. It was so encouraging. I think between us, we bought nearly all of the early rough trade singles.
Tara:We like the raincoats, Delta 5, Swell Maps, Kleenex, Lilliput, and also the Modets, all those post punk bands. We love the old punk bands like Buzzcocks, X-ray Specs, and early Sex Pistols and The Clash, but that music seemed like a long time before, even though it was only a couple years previous. We didn't think about our music being vulnerable. We thought that it was as strong as the music we love, but in a different form. Quiet can be strong too.
Tara:Our music was innocent because I suppose we were. I love that. I just got chills rereading it.
Natalie:Yeah. It makes me think I think about how spoiled our ears are becoming with this digitized perfection that we hear, that people start to think that's what voices, that's what music and instruments sound like. And I'm so excited. I mean, it's gonna it's gonna whip back around soon, and I just can't wait until we rediscover an appreciation for this level of sincerity
Tara:Yeah.
Natalie:In music and just let voices sound like human voices and imperfect and you know what I mean? And just kind of focus on the the the feeling and the energy of the music. Yeah. I because I watched a video recently about a video exposing the use of auto tune, like, in TikTok. These sort of setup people singing in kitchens and things.
Natalie:I've seen that video.
Tara:I've seen that video. Yes.
Natalie:It just it spoke so much of, you know, what I'm so irritated with these days. But, yeah, I just I can't wait till we get away from that. It's so ridiculous. And this is this is a perfect example of just how of how powerful something so simple and so stripped down and just human can be so much more powerful emotionally when you listen to it.
Tara:Yeah. Definitely. I mean, gosh, even just a recent example, I mean, so recent. We just had the Super Bowl and Alicia Keys was singing. Have you have you seen this or heard this yet?
Tara:Where her voice cracked kind of pretty bad.
Natalie:That's kind of her thing though. Isn't that just like her sound?
Tara:No. I mean, like, it was a it was definitely not intentional. Like, her voice just did, like, a little it was a mess up. But at the same time, I keep seeing videos on TikTok of people saying, like, this was so real. Like, I was so glad to hear her have this imperfection because, you know, everything else is always, like, lip syncing and fake and
Natalie:Just like robots. Yeah.
Tara:Yeah. She was she was really singing, and I appreciated that. Yeah. But then, I guess, supposedly, on the there's like a I don't know if it's ESPN or NF whatever NFL, some official YouTube video that they've already fixed it somehow digitally.
Natalie:Yeah. Isn't that crazy? It's crazy. Sounds totally different now.
Tara:Yeah. That's that's annoying. Maybe she was embarrassed by it too. I'm not sure, but I love that people who, like, are the ones that care, I would say, about the music are saying, you know, I liked that it had a real element to it. I'm glad she wasn't lip syncing.
Tara:It made me glad that they tried to actually have the the musicians performing live this huge event, which is really cool.
Natalie:Yeah. I agree.
Tara:So, anyway oh, yeah. And, also, Gina was saying and the majority of the bands that they liked were female bands or had female singers. She said me and Tracy liked Pauline Murray from Penetration a lot and, of course, polystyrene of extra specs. The raincoats were so important, and I think they made us think we could be a girl band and put out our own music and fanzine. I love that they were, you know, really leaning into their peers and seeing what other women in the punk scene and DIY scene were doing, and were inspired to just do their own thing and just be themselves.
Tara:Hell, yeah. And expectations and allowing their femininity to become part of their sound. Tracey explains that many fans saw themselves reflected and represented in our refusal to adhere to either mainstream pop or underground rock and roll rules. We conducted ourselves as though none of those rules existed or as if they simply didn't apply to us. That album Beach Party reached number 29 in the UK indie charts in March 1982.
Tara:Gina unceremoniously departed the band soon after the release of Beach Party, after which the trio reconfigured and recorded the album Lazy Ways and landed on the cover of Melody Maker. And this is Gina's story on how and why she quit. She said Alice had a friend that used to come to rehearsals and wanted to be in the band. I thought I was gonna be pushed out to make room for her. Also, I had trouble actually physically getting to some rehearsals because I lived in a different town.
Tara:Later, I found out that none of others realized this and really had no thought of replacing me. So simple lack of communication. How silly, she says. That is silly. What a bummer.
Tara:She sort of ousted herself on these, like, assumptions that they were gonna push her out.
Natalie:Yeah. That's very teeny, isn't it?
Tara:It is very teeny. Yeah. Very teenage girly. Yeah. Marine Girls then went on to record 2 Peele sessions.
Tara:Their first I love that.
Natalie:Holy crap.
Tara:Hang yourself on the nearest tree. Here's the door. Take a coat piece. Don't let it hit the outside.
Natalie:Beamed by this sweet little guitar, you know, strumming because that first line is savage. Good lord. I know. Right?
Tara:She doesn't wanna hear anymore of his words. Alright.
Natalie:Can I just say too, the cover of this Melody Maker magazine is so cute with Jane climbing out of the pool?
Tara:Oh, yeah. Very cute. Love that.
Natalie:Ain't that adorable?
Tara:That's good. Their second PEEL session from 1983 contains 4 songs, Lazy Ways, That Day, Seascape, and cover version of Love You More by the Buzzcocks. Lazy Ways is the second album of Marine Girls, and it was released by Cherry Red Records in 1983. The song Lazy Ways also appears on Cherry Red showcase compilation, Pillows and Prayers, while A Place in the Sun appears on Pillows and Prayers 2. And the album Lazy Ways and Beach Party were reissued together on 1 CD with bonus tracks by Cherry Red in 1988.
Tara:But let's listen to the title track of Lazydays, Lazydays. Pretty.
Natalie:I like these these ladies a lot.
Tara:Yeah. Me too. My vibe. The bass sounds really good.
Natalie:Yeah. It's got, like, this glomp. Look. It too sounds like it's underwater. Yeah.
Natalie:Like these big glugs.
Tara:It is gluggy. I really like it though.
Natalie:It's cool.
Tara:So like I said, lazy ways came out in 1983. From 1982 though, Tracy Thorne started concentrating on her studies and growing personal and professional relationships with fellow Hull student, Ben Watt, who contributed the photograph for the cover of Lazy Ways. Ben Watt and Tracy Thorne rerecorded the Cole Porter song Night and Day under the name of Everything But the Girl. We have to listen to a little bit of Night and Day because it's one of my favorite Everything But the Girl releases.
Natalie:So That's amazing. I love that. Yeah. I love Tracy Thorne's voice. I know how perfect.
Tara:So good. The start of everything but the girl in the midst of Marine Girl's history. Yeah. Tracy Thorne had also released that solo album that we mentioned before that Pat Birmingham recorded in a shed in 1982. It's called The Distant Shore, which was well received by the critics and public.
Tara:But pursuing this sort of parallel of Marine Girls and Everything But the Girl with Benoit first seemed comfortable and okay, but with increasing popularity and media attention of Everything But the Girl, Tracy split with the Fox sisters in 1983 after the release of the successful Lazy Ways album. But the Fox sisters didn't stop. They continued their seaside oceanic fixation in 1984 formed the band Grab, Grab the Haddock, which produced 2 EPs on Cherry Red before they folded in 1986. So let's listen to Elizabeth. Grab Grab the Haddock's EP Alright.
Tara:So we're winding down here. Even though they were only active between 1980 and 1983, Marine Girls were able to release 2 great albums at the time and remain incredibly underrated from the British indie pop movement despite exerting so much influence over artists to come. And a distant friend of theirs, Calvin Johnson, carried the Marine Girl's legacy to Portland, Oregon. We'll come back, marine, and So that Indian summer song came out in 1988 only 5 years after Lazy Days came out and was inspired completely by Marine Girl. So then, like I said, Calvin Johnson took this legacy Portland, Oregon, first formed that band, Be Happening.
Tara:And then by being part of the label Sub Pop, which ultimately signed Nirvana, he played the album Beach Party to Kurt and Courtney along with things like the raincoats and Kleenex, and Kurt loved Beach Party. When Kurt Cobain's journals were published 2002 in his own handwriting, a marine girl showed up in many of his lists of favorite bands. They're the Marine Girls are on page a 128, page 241. And on page 77 is a list of his favorite songs. Honey and In Love Are There, also from Marine Girls.
Tara:Most incredibly on page 271, Beach Party is listed as one of Kurt Cobain's top 50 albums along with the Sex Pistols, The Clash, and Public Enemy.
Natalie:Nice. I know. That's huge. Right? That's that's pretty crazy.
Tara:I'm actually gonna close this out with some words from Tracy because it just doesn't get any better when it's someone from the band reflecting on their legacy and influence themselves. So here we go. Tracy says, this is clearly going to be a recurring theme of my life and is a course of wonderful thing. Makes me very proud, but it does just beg the question. What on earth is it or was it about marine girls that means we cast this long and somewhat unlikely shadow?
Tara:We only ever really performed a handful of proper gigs and released 2 albums, which went on to sell something in the region of 50,000 copies each, so we might have expected to be forgotten fairly quickly. But in fact, the opposite has happened. And in that mysterious late night obsessive world of the Internet, we have become somewhat seminal post punk DIY band, more revered now than we ever were at the time. Those who loved us, you see, loved us deeply and enduringly. And those who understood the highlight previously.
Tara:We created an almost magical sense of other worldliness hand built on our own little universe. And when audiences were allowed a glimpse of it, often Our split was perhaps the most rock and roll thing we ever did. And that it was Our split was perhaps the most rock and roll thing we ever did and that it took place in a dressing room after a fraught gig at which we were heckled and was not without acrimony. We were very young, so the aftermath was poorly handled by all of us. And it was years before we ever talked to each other about it and made our peace with the mess we'd made.
Tara:Still, all that said, there is kind of a perfection in us having split up just when we did, leaving a legacy of a more or less entirely uncompromised version of indie pop. The end.
Natalie:Wow. That's that's so interesting. Right?
Tara:And now we have everything but the girl who I love.
Natalie:She's right though. You know, they they were just around. They were around for a short time, and it was just like this perfect snapshot of the time and of, you know, being that age, you know, and just dip back out. Yeah. Make your mark and jump back out.
Tara:Plus Tracy Thorne's arc, career arc in music is a really interesting one, being from, like, this post punk world all the way to this really smart electronic music is a cool arc.
Natalie:It is a cool arc. Yeah. I I love her musical journey.
Tara:Me too.
Natalie:And I think I think too, like, being in the spotlight for such not even the spotlight really, but, you know, making music for that short period of time. You don't have to think about changing trends and and, you know, them growing up and becoming adults and having to, like, incorporate all this new kind of life experience. So it allows that music to just become more distilled with time, you know?
Tara:Yeah. Definitely. It's a good point. And you can hear the maturity of her music over time, listening all the way from
Natalie:her girl. Started singing.
Tara:Oh, yeah. Me too. I love her voice. It's so unique and beautiful. I mean, those massive attack songs, the, all the way to, like, Hatfield 1980 kind of a trip hop vibe in the early 2000 or was that late nineties?
Tara:Round there, I guess. But yeah. Good times. Marine Girls. Yeah.
Tara:Never forget.
Natalie:Very sweet.
Tara:Who do you have for us to chat about? Well,
Natalie:I'm not too far back from the Marine Girls in time. We're gonna go to the seventies and talk about a very influential trio of spectacular singers, beautiful young ladies called the Jones Girls. So the Jones Girls are 3 sisters, Shirley, Brenda, and Valerie, born and raised in Detroit. Their mother is gospel singer Mary Frasier Jones, known as the songbird of Detroit. So they'd been singing together from an early age, coached by their mom who noticed their natural gift for harmonizing, so she really trained them, even brought them on as her backup singers as she herself was an artist on RCA Records back in the fifties, one of the first gospel artists on RCA, in fact.
Natalie:And she signed the same day as Little Richard. So that was fun. So the Jones Girls were first signed to GM Records in 68, and then, you know, they started recording for a smattering of smaller labels. I think they did a Fortune record label in Detroit, then they moved to Hot Wax Invictus, which is a company formed by legendary Motown producers Lamont Dozier, Eddie Holland, Brian Holland. Here's one of the singles that they recorded during that time in 1972 called Comeback.
Natalie:And then they later moved to Curtis Mayfield's custom records. So now the 3 sisters, they're doing their own thing. They've gone secular. The word has gotten out on their amazing harmonies. And they just started working with some pretty major artists such as Lou Rawls, Aretha Franklin, Peabo Bryson, Teddy Pendergrass.
Natalie:In 1976, they began touring as backup singers for Diana Ross And Diana Ross even graciously offered them the spotlight for, like, a little interlude during her show. So while they were on tour with Diana Ross, that's when they really hit it big. They joined the Philadelphia International Records in 1979 with writing and production legends Kenneth Gamble and Leon a Huff, known as the architects of Philly Soul Sound. So the backstory is that Diana Ross introduced the Jones girls to Kenneth Gamble after one of her shows, and Patti LaBelle was also in attendance that night. And Diana Ross told Gamble that the Jones Girls were just too good to be backup singers forever.
Natalie:And Gamble was very impressed with them, signed them right away, and this is kind of where they blew up. Now, during this whole time, the timeline is a little bit murky, but they're still going on tour singing backups for huge artists like, the 4 tops, Little Richard, the Impressions, BB King. They performed on Tower of Power's 1979 album, Back on the Streets. So that same year, 1979, the Jones Girls released their self titled debut album to Philadelphia International Records.
Tara:And you there landed
Natalie:their 1st and biggest hit with you're gonna make me love somebody else. Well, this song has been, like, sampled and covered. I mean, I'm I'm sure you've come across this
Tara:Yeah.
Natalie:Before in all kinds of ways. I mean, the song is just so darn groovy. That bass, the beat, it's it's ridiculous. Yeah. It's been sampled a lot, wrapped over a lot.
Natalie:The one that jumps to mind first for me is that Jay z song with Blackstreet that came out in 1987 called The City is Mine. Yeah. Yep. That bass line. Do you remember that song?
Tara:No. I don't know that song.
Natalie:97. God, I can't believe that was that long ago. It's so crazy. It is crazy. Anyway, so You're Gonna Make Me Love Somebody Else went gold.
Natalie:It hit Billboard's soul singles chart, the disco chart, and reached number 38 on the Billboard Hot 100. And this was their only major chart entry, which seems insane once we hear all of the other big hits they had. The album also appeared on Billboard's pop albums and top soul albums charts. So quite a major success for these ladies. Another classic b side from that album is Who Can I Run To?
Natalie:I love that. That's the jam. Beautiful, soulful ballad, which was famously covered by the nineties R and B group, Escape. And that version, Escape's version, became a number 1 R and B hit, a top 10 pop hit in 1995 and was definitely my introduction to this song. It's a pretty faithful the Jones Girls version really well.
Natalie:So, yep, that's a classic. In 19 eighties, the Jones Girls released their sophomore album, At Peace was I don't care. And they had another statement on their hands with the track.
Tara:I just saw the world of fame. That reminds me of En Vogue.
Natalie:Yeah. What's the name of the song? That ballad that they had such a huge deal with.
Tara:Don't let go.
Natalie:Giving him something he can feel when they're in the red the red dresses.
Tara:Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That one too.
Tara:I was thinking that
Natalie:was a remake, actually. But, yeah, the whole the whole vibe for sure. And also to that point, I can't get over their live performances. You would really enjoy seeing them do this, like, look them up on YouTube. Aside from being spectacular singers, they are so gorgeous, just full on seventies maximum head to toe glam, slaying.
Natalie:They're such great performers, complete naturals on stage. This song in particular is fun because there's, like, a lot of talking. It's one sister expressing concern for another because she seems so distraught and just not herself with this guy. And, you know, you need to get away from him. And then the hook comes in, and the other sister's like, I know, girl, but damn it.
Natalie:I just love this band. You know? It is so cute to see them act the whole thing out on stage. So also featured on this album is a remake of the stylistic song Children of the Night. They're just mesmerizing.
Natalie:And I love the original too. That stylistic song Children of the Night is is one of my favorites as well. So I love this cover. In 1981, they released their 3rd album, Get As Much Love As You Can. And this album delivered a major major hit.
Natalie:Certainly, we saw theirs with the greatest legacy, and that is Knights Over Egypt. That intro groove to Nights Over Egypt is just timeless. That little snake charmer synth line at the start, and then those chords, and then that iconic bass line. Yeah. It's just so smooth and mystical and the vibe.
Natalie:It was nominated for a Grammy.
Tara:I miss that sound. It's it's like pre, Quiet Storm, post disco. It's like a blend of soul and funk, but slower and sexy sexier. I don't know. I missed that.
Natalie:This is what they nailed it. They polished that right up in Philly. This is that Philly soul I love it. Quiet Storm sound for sure.
Tara:Yeah. But before the cheesy Quiet Storm stuff.
Natalie:Yeah. Sure. Sure. Sure. Yeah.
Natalie:Another great thing about this track too, I think it's a good example. I mean, all of their songs are good examples of this, but, like, their greatest legacy is the quality of their harmony, their top tier harmonies. And I think you can really hear it in this song, especially because they're singing, like, in unison during the the verses. They're singing in unison, and it's just, like, it's so seamless and just unified. It's like one voice, and they're just in sync with each other when they break into harmonies.
Natalie:It's so clean. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's definitely a gift. That's something that their mom clocked early early on.
Natalie:Yeah. Just just some of the greatest harmonies I think I've I've ever heard.
Tara:Yeah. It does sound like it's, you know, how modern artists these days are lay they layer so many of their vocals to get this rich sound, but it seems like they almost get it out of the box because of their Yeah. Blood harmonies. They're
Natalie:They just have it locked in.
Tara:Yeah. It's locked in. Exactly. That's the word I'm looking for. That's perfect.
Natalie:Yeah. So, again, this song was not made free for me. It has been sampled and covered numerous times, most famously, I believe, by the group Incognito in 1990
Tara:9.
Natalie:So Incognito, of course, is the British acid jazz band, and so they gave the song a danceier club vibe, which ended up being a pretty big hit for them as well. Then the Jones Girls released an album with RCA Records in 1983 called On Target, which didn't make as big a splash as the previous albums. It was it was a pretty different sound for them. Here's the title track for that. Yeah.
Natalie:So you can hear that they're kind of, like, moving into more of that eighties pop lane. It's a cute song. Yeah. It's it's it's different though. And here's what I think happened.
Natalie:So this album, it didn't do great. It peaked at 43 on the Billboard chart. And then the next year, in 1984, their previous label, Philadelphia International, released an album of the Jones Girls' unreleased tracks called Keep It Coming. So or Keep It Coming. Excuse me.
Natalie:So here's that title track. So that's yeah. That's still a little eighties pop action, I guess, but as a whole, the album was still kind of sticking to more of that Philly sound that they had established. And I think having those two records out at around the same time maybe threw the audience off just a little bit. And that Keep It Coming album actually sold better than the RCA on target album, and maybe that's why.
Natalie:Maybe because it just felt more familiar to that Philly soul sound that people had gotten used to. So after that, the Jones Girls disbanded, and life just moved on. Brenda got married, youngest sister Valerie went to college, and Shirley married Harlem Globetrotters player Harold Hubbard. Kenneth Gamble reached out to eldest sister Shirley to invite her back to Philadelphia International as a solo artist, And Shirley returned, recorded, and released an album called Always in the Mood in 1986, and she scored a number 1 R and B hit with her single, Do You Get Enough
Tara:Love.
Natalie:So fun fact, that song was originally intended for the O jays. The Jones Girls occasionally reunited for overseas tours, but tragically in 2001, Valerie Jones passed away at 45 years old. And in 2017, Brenda Jones died at 62 years old in an auto accident. But Shirley is still with us entertaining, performing, doing interviews, and she is a delight to watch. She still performs as the Jones Girls alongside her 2 nieces and a nephew on backing vocals, which I think is really sweet.
Natalie:It's a family affair.
Tara:Yeah. Keep it in the family.
Natalie:Love that. So the Jones Girls are still doing it, but check them out. Just, you know, they deserve their flowers. They've been been killing it, like, since they were children. You know?
Natalie:Just this unmistakable talent, and they've toured and sung with the greats, and they've dropped some major major hits that are still inspiring artists to this day and being used in samples and covers. Yeah. They've definitely made their mark on music and the culture for sure.
Tara:Yeah. I I definitely recognize the cover of their debut album, The Jones Girls.
Natalie:Mhmm.
Tara:I love that sound. Yeah. And it looks like Brenda actually lived in Atlanta
Natalie:Oh, yeah. At one point? Yeah. I had read that one of the sisters lived in Atlanta. Yeah.
Tara:Oh, that's good. I love also how they started as a family with their mom kind of teaching them the ways and then even having them as her backup singer and and then
Natalie:They were bred for stardom. All the
Tara:way fast forward.
Natalie:For sure.
Tara:Yeah. That's great. Cool.
Natalie:Rockin'.
Tara:Yeah. We found commonalities last time. Right?
Natalie:We always find commonalities. I feel
Tara:like we do. Yeah.
Natalie:Aren't they they're both trios. That's low hanging fruit. Well, I know that initially the marine girls weren't a trio.
Tara:Yeah. Court did. They
Natalie:became a trio. Right?
Tara:That's true.
Natalie:I'll take it.
Tara:But I will say it does seem like that they worked their butts off kind of and left this lasting impression, even though they aren't often spoken about. I mean, that's kind of why we're talking about them. Right? It's because they're forgotten girl groups, so that's maybe too much of a commonality there.
Natalie:How about they are both these glowing bastions of just pure femininity, unapologetic, feminine power?
Tara:Unapologetic femininity. I'm shocked that I said that word correctly on the first try.
Natalie:I'm so proud of you.
Tara:I I love talking about these girl groups because I swear I always learn so much. I know about them, but I don't know everything about them. And so, you know, I didn't realize Yeah. Marine Girls had such an impact to indie pop and Jones Girls too. Their influence has clearly gone really far, and I don't really know them very well.
Tara:So
Natalie:Well, same here. I've always loved Tracy Thorne, and I didn't know so much about her musical history. Yeah. It's been cool to hear about that. And I think that's why it's important to have these conversations because we recognize these songs.
Natalie:We know that they're iconic. We dance to them all the time. We deserve we we need to fill in the blanks on the women who brought the music to us. You know?
Tara:That's true. Yeah. So yeah. Good call. Alright.
Tara:Cool. Okay. Thank you. Bye. Alright.
Tara:Bye. Record Store Society is hosted by Natalie White and Tara Davies. If you'd like to contact the show, visit our website at record store society.com, or you can find us on all your favorite social media sites with the handle at record store society.