Born: 7 May 1946
Birth name: Thelma Jackson

Thelma was born in the city of Leland in Mississippi but grew up in Long Beach, California. She began performing in the 60’s as part of the Art Reynolds Singers. She released her first solo single in 1966, a song called ‘Baby Mine’. This was released by Capitol records and while it failed to impact the charts, it did lead to her being sought by other record labels and she signed with ABC/Dunhill where she would see her first Hot 100 hit in 1970 with ‘Save The Country’ which went to 74. However, follow up singles failed to capitalise on this. She would see a minor UK hit in 1972 with ‘No One’s Gonna Be A Fool Forever’ (#56) and an Australian hit in 1973 with ‘Piano Man’ (#44 – not a cover of the Billy Joel song of the same name). She finally hit the big time in 1976 when her cover of the Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes’ song ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ went to number 1 in the US and 13 in the UK. But again she failed to capitalise on this and saw only 2 further US chart hits with neither getting into the top 30 of the chart. She would see 6 UK hits in total with ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ being her best performer. She has starred in a number of films and Television shows. She is not related to Whitney Houston.