Thelma Houston: A Lost Mahogany Theme, Direct-to-Disc and Don't Leave Me

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Thelma Houston was born Thelma Jackson in Leland, Mississippi, where her mother picked cotton, before the family moved to Long Beach, California. She married, had two children and sang gospel with the Art Reynolds Singers, then signed with Dunhill and, in 1971, Motown. Her 1974 single You've Been Doing Wrong for So Long stalled at No. 64 R&B but earned a Grammy nomination. A 1973 Dinah Washington biopic she was set to star in fell apart over rights, and The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine, which she joined in 1974, was canceled. Motown then took her finished recording of Do You Know Where You're Going To and gave the song to Diana Ross as the theme for Mahogany. She is not related to Whitney Houston.

In 1975 she recorded I've Got the Music in Me for Sheffield Lab as a direct-to-disc album cut live to lacquer, which audiophiles used to test equipment. Her 1976 cover of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes' Don't Leave Me This Way hit No. 1 on the pop, R&B and club charts in early 1977 and won her a Grammy, after racing the original up the UK charts. The disco backlash then cut her airplay, a Columbia Pictures Bessie Smith biopic was abandoned, and she left Motown. She executive produced her 1984 album Qualifying Heat and later appeared on Simon & Simon and Cagney & Lacey.

• In 2025 I've Got the Music in Me was added to the National Recording Registry.
• Qualifying Heat used Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and a young Lenny Kravitz credited as Romeo Blue, and produced the R&B hit You Used to Hold Me So Tight.
• In a 1984 Billboard interview she said she had not had sustained success since Don't Leave Me This Way and blamed the disco backlash.
• In 1994 she joined the gospel group Sisters of Glory with Chaka Khan, Phoebe Snow, Mavis Staples and CeCe Peniston, playing Woodstock '94 and the Vatican.
• She appeared in the films 54 and Beloved, toured Australia in Fame, recorded with Morrissey in 2020 and reached the semifinals of The Masked Singer in 2024 as Clock.