This incredible 2CD DigiPak Edition features the four studio albums recorded by UK singer and performer, Tina Charles during a very successful spell signed to CBS Records during the mid to late 1970s.

It brings together for the first time all four of her CBS albums, ‘I Love To Love’ (1976), ‘Dance Little Lady’ (1976), ‘Heart ‘N’ Soul’ (1977) and ‘Just One Smile’ (1980) with 15 tracks appearing on CD for the first time.

The collection has been sourced from the restored original production masters, presenting them in the order they were originally released, with many tracks appearing on CD in Europe for the very first time.

Tina Charles scored four UK single hits in 1976, including the #1 smash ‘I Love To Love’ and two Top 10’s with ‘Dance Little Lady Dance’ and ‘Dr. Love’. She also released two albums in the same year, and became a massive artist in Europe. Two further albums were released on CBS in 1977 and 1980. Ever present was the producer/writer Biddu, guiding and developing her sound over the four albums.

Tina Charles also scored her highest chart hit in the US in 2006 with a national Billboard top five, ‘Higher’ by Sanny featuring Tina Charles, raising her profile yet further.

CD 1: I LOVE TO LOVE + DANCE LITTLE LADY
1 I LOVE TO LOVE 2 YOU SET MY HEART ON FIRE (PART 1) 3 HEY BOY 4 TAKE ALL OF ME 5 LOVE ME LIKE A LOVER 6 WHY 7 HOLD ME 8 DISCO FEVER 9 YOU SET MY HEART ON FIRE (PART 2) 10 DISCO LOVE 11 IT’S TIME FOR A CHANGE OF HEART 12 DR. LOVE 13 ALL COMES BACK TO YOU 14 FALLIN’ IN LOVE WITH A BOY 15 DANCE LITTLE LADY 16 AMAZING GRACE 17 WHEN YOU GOT LOVE 18 BOOGIETHON 19 HALFWAY TO PARADISE

+ Denotes appearing on CD for the first time

CD 1 is centered around her ten-track debut album, ‘I Love To Love’ and her nine-song follow up, ‘Dance Little Lady’ both released in 1976. Tracks include the hits ‘I Love To Love’, ‘Dance Little Lady’ and ‘Dr. Love’.

In the mid-’70s, Tina Charles was the reigning queen, a veritable sub-disco pop diva who, though she never dented a chart stateside, took six singles into her native Top 30. This, her 1976 debut album, was titled for the positively enormous number one hit that launched that sequence. Pure period disco, with soaring strings, chukka-chukka guitar, and all the right bells and whistles, it must be confessed that it has some charm.

Best known for his hand on Carl Douglas’ 1975 standard Kung-Fu Fighting, producer Biddu’s slick hand is seldom far from the crime scene, and often blatantly obvious. Check out the hyper-kung-fu’d intro to Take All of Me. But, albeit occasionally, something shines and here, for me, that would be the sweet ballad Hold Me.

If Tina Charles’ debut album was the sound of an uncertain vocalist wed to an overambitious producer, then her sophomore effort, 1976’s Dance Little Lady, evens up the match. Both the title track, which gave her a U.K. number six hit in August, and the smarmy-but-smart follow-up, Dr. Love, brought Charles success on the singles chart, while both Fallin’ in Love With a Boy and When You Got Love could easily have followed them.

The highlights of the album, however, and in my humble opinion, are two tracks that you might ordinarily have dreaded to encounter on a Biddu-fired disco album, the hauntingly traditional Amazing Grace and the old Billy Fury smash Halfway to Paradise.

CD 2: HEART ‘N’ SOUL + JUST ONE SMILE
1 A. LOVE BUG B. SWEETS FOR MY SWEET 2 I’LL GO WHERE YOUR MUSIC TAKES ME 3 STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING TO ME + 4 RENDEZVOUS 5 FALLIN’ IN LOVE IN SUMMERTIME 6 I GOTTA DANCE WITH YOU + 7 I’LL BE YOUR LIGHT (IN YOUR MOMENT OF DARKNESS) + 8 AIN’T GONNA HIDE MY LOVE 9 GO + 10 JUST ONE SMILE + 11 I’M JUST AS BAD AS YOU + 12 LOVER BOY + 13 DANCE WITH ME + 14 MAKIN’ ALL THE RIGHT MOVES + 15 YOU SET MY HEART ON FIRE + 16 AFTER ALL THAT WE’VE BEEN THROUGH + 17 SOMEWHERE + 18 LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING + 19 SECRET LOVE + 20 FIRE DOWN BELOW + 21 BOOGIE ROUND THE CLOCK

+ Denotes appearing on CD for the first time

CD 2 features the ‘Heart ‘N’ Soul’ album originally released in 1977 and ‘Just One Smile’ from 1980. Included are the singles ‘Fallin’ In Love In Summertime’, ‘Love Bug Sweets For My Sweet’, ‘I’ll Go Where Your Music Takes Me’, ‘Fire Down Below’ and ‘Makin’ All The Right Moves’. Also featured is Sondheim and Bernstein’s West Side Story classic ‘Somewhere’.

Two albums had been released, both charted, and so it was that this third album by Charles in 1977 also went into the charts [albeit here and there] rather immediately. No super hits like I Love to Love were picked this time, but there were four smaller hits on the album.

Rendezvous is a most gentle pop-soul ballad, the melody later plagiarized by Ottawan for the disco smash D.I.S.C.O.), Love Bug / Sweets for My Sweet (a disco medley including the remake of a Drifters / Searchers classic), I’ll Go Where Your Music Takes Me (a great disco soul song first recorded by Jimmy James & the Vagabonds) and Fallin’ in Love in Summertime (a remake of Tina’s ’76 song titled Fallin’ in Love With a Boy Like You, emphasizing the song’s stylistic connection with Mungo Jerry’s 1970 classic In the Summertime).

Several years removed from her mid-’70s commercial peak, 1980’s Just One Smile finds Charles competently, but hardly breathtakingly, making her way through a clutch of new covers and standards, her eyes clearly on establishing herself as a well-rounded performer rather than attempting to break back into the charts.

That said, there are still some outstanding moments to be found here, such as the simply breathtaking Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, the disco-lite arrangements found within Dance With Me and the title track, but ultimately, and as much as this album is a glorious sea of well-meaning strings and low bpm, it just doesn’t resonate as much as her earlier work, for me.

The Digipak edition features a 20-page booklet that includes a UK Discography and sleeve notes written by Lois Wilson.

Official 2CD Purchase Link