Thelma Jones I Can't Stand It / Only Yesterday

The missing link between her Barry and Columbia singles, “I Can’t Stand It” b/w “Only Yesterday” is Thelma Jones with her back against the wall of an empty and indifferent Holiday Inn lounge and nothing to lose. Washed out of the recording business by the age of 30, Jones and her then-husband/manager James Hazley relocated to Tampa to work the hotel circuit and figure out what—if anything—was next. Following a chance encounter with Blair Mooney, Jones was invited to workshop a few stray originals at his Studio 70 compound in 1972. “He seemed to believe in me more than I did at the time,”Jones remembered of the Tampa studio impresario. Jones signed with Columbia a few years later and hightailed it out of The Big Guava, leaving two sides of country-politan soul on the shelf to be forgotten about. This Eccentric Soul 45 is a first time issue, carrying the banner of Mooney’s Gimp label and mastered directly from the original analog tapes.