British rock musician Dave Ball (“Tainted Love”), 66, died on Oct. 22 after years of ill health. Ball (instrumentals) and Marc Almond (vocals) formed the synth-pop duo Soft Cell in 1978, and besides their 1981 hit “Tainted Love,” had such successful singles as “Torch," "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye,” "What,” and "Bedsitter.” “Tainted Love” had originally been sung by Gloria Jones in 1965, but Soft Cell ‘80s’d it up. The group broke up in 1984, occasionally reuniting for concerts. Ball told The Guardian in 2017, “Everyone in Leeds was into doom-laden stuff, but we wanted to do something more uplifting. Marc was working in the cloakroom of a club called the Warehouse, when the DJ played ‘Tainted Love. He ran up and asked: ‘What’s this?’ When we started on our own version, it felt twisted and strange. That suited us.” When fame first hit, he said, “Girls would chase us in the street. We were living in a dodgy little housing association flat in Leeds and being flown about in Concorde. Then we’d get home to find neighbours had put graffiti over our door and superglued the locks shut.”
“Tainted Love” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CppOyay3UsM&list=RDCppOyay3UsM&start_radio=1
