THE OFFICIAL TINA CHARLES BIOGRAPHY

Legendary UK Disco Diva Tina Charles signed her first major record deal with CBS at the tender age of 15. By the time she was in the early 20s, Charles sold over 20 millions albums worldwide. She is best known for her international hits "I Love to Love (But My Baby Just Loves to Dance)", "Dance Little Lady" and "You Set My Heart on Fire". Tina Charles is currently riding a brand new wave of success in the US with the song "Higher" by Sanny X. Higher reached the Billboard Dance & Club Play Chart's Top 5 in August '06"This has set the tone for the dawn of a new era for our beloved songstress as the wheels turn gracefully towards "A New BeginningTina Hoskins was born on March 10, 1954 in London, England. Proud parents Hilda and Charles knew intuitively that she was an exceptional child. Tina was to follow in her fathers footsteps into the entertainment world. Her father Charles Hoskins was himself an Actor. Tina started singing before she could walk however started to hit the right notes during her time at Coroner Academy of Arts and Drama. At age 15, Tina recorded three singles with CBS at Chapels Studio in London, one of the songs Good To Be Alive had the backing vocals of a then unknown session singer called Reg Dwight, later known as Elton John. It was around that time that she took on her fathers first name and became Tina Charles. It wasn't until 5000 Volts released I'm On Fire that thing really started to happen. As the story goes, she wasn't officially the lead vocalist of the band, but just doing some session work and happened to have a better voice than the groups front woman who allegedly lip-synched the song during a performance on British television. It wasn't an unusual arrangement, but the press found out and England's biggest newspaper, the Sun reported as '5000 Volts Shocker' and suddenly Tina was famous. (Amongst her other session-work from this era, you can hear Charles on Cockney Rebel's 'Come Up And See Me'.)
This success and the brilliant sound of her voice brought her to the attention of the singularly named, and fast-rising disco producer Biddu. Having already struck disco gold with Carl Douglas' massive international hit, "Kung Fu Fighting," Biddu approached Charles and had her cut the solo single "You Set My Heart on Fire". CBS released the single but didn't do anything in the UK charts, though it reached No.3 in the US Billboard Dance Charts. The follow up single though, monumental disco anthem "I Love to Love (But My Baby Just Loves to Dance)" was to change things forever. The song reached No.1 on the UK singles charts in March 1976, and saw heavy rotation in the discotheques here in the states including New Yorks legendary Studio 54. With Biddu working magically behind the scenes, Charles brought yet another single, "Love Me Like a Lover" into the U.K. charts that year. Charles was backed by a band that included future Buggles (Video Killed The Radio Star) Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes. Tina Charles released her first full length album that summer.
The album Dance Lady Dance spawned two UK Top Ten singles at the end of 1976, the No.6 hit "Dance Little Lady Dance" and the No.4 smash "Dr Love." In total, Charles spent a remarkable 42 weeks on the UK chart in 1976. The following year was just as productive. She recorded two more albums, Rendezvous and Heart 'N Soul, and three of her singles were chart smashes: "Rendezvous"; a medley of "Love Bug" and the oldie "Sweets for My Sweet" hit in 1977; but the most notable was the following year's cover of fellow-Biddu stablemate Jimmy James' hit "I'll Go Where Your Music Takes Me." Tina recalls "It was like a whirlwind, I didnt even have time to think, the only country I never made was Australia but I had good reason." The reason the trip to Australia never materialized was that in June 1977 Tina gave birth to her son, Max. At the end of 1977 at the height of her popularity, Tina chose to focus on her family and ended the constant touring. She return to session singing, jingles and involved herself in charity work. She did though owe one more album to CBS which was her last album to date Just One Smile which was recorded in 1980.
Success did not evade her even during her downtime. In 1986, Charles returned to the European chart with a remix of 'I Love to Love' which was produced by Sanny X. During the 90s Tina's happily worked benefiting from the reappraisal of the classic disco era, and through those years made new music (some of it in collaboration with Hi-NRG star Hazell Dean) and performed throughout Europe. In 2002 with her son all grown, she decided to return to the lime light. Old friend and producer Sanny X contacted her to work on a new project he was developing, a dance track simply called "Higher". Sanny X had also written a huge backlog of songs and offered to produce a new album for Charles. In May 2006, the song 'Higher' featuring the electrifying vocals of Tina Charles was released in the US by Wizard Records and reach No.5 on Billboard's Hot Dance & Club Play Chart.