Madeline Bell föddes 1942 i Newark i New Jersey. Under uppväxten sjöng hon, tillsammans med sin kusinJoanne Williams, senare medlem iR&J Stone,gospel i Glovertons.[1]
När hon studerat färdigt var hon med iAlex Bradfords off-Broadway show,Black Nativity. Bell flyttade till Italien 1962 där hon fortsatte arbetet med musiken. Hon flyttade till London året därpå. Hon fick ett skivkontrakt, men ingen av hennes singlar slog igenom. År 1965 tog hon därför ett annat arbete. Hennes första hit var en cover påDee Dee Warwicks låt "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" 1968. Låten blev en topp 30-hit i USA. Hon var mer populär iStorbritannien än i USA efter den låten.
Bell bildade gruppenBlue Mink i Storbritannien. Blue Mink hade hits som "Melting Pot", "Good Morning Freedom Banner", "Man Stay With Me" och "Randy". Gruppen upplöstes 1974.[1]
^ [abc]”The Singer not the Song - Record Collector Magazine” (på engelska).https://recordcollectormag.com/articles/the-singer-not-the-song. Läst 3 januari 2026. ”She made the US charts in 1968 with I’m Gonna Make You Love Me but it didn’t happen here. [...] Madeline Bell Brodus was born in Newark, New Jersey, on 23 July 1942. She sang gospel music in the Glovertones with her cousin, Joanne Williams, who became part of R&J Stone. After leaving school, Madeline joined the gospel star Alex Bradford, and was in his off-Broadway show, Black Nativity. In June 1962, they moved to Italy and recorded a TV special for Associated-Rediffusion. “They wanted to put the show in London’s Criterion Theatre for two weeks, two shows a day, – and it got bigger and bigger. We were doing it until August 1963. [...] The EMI producer, Norman Newell, gave Madeline a recording contract but, despite asuccession of singles for HMV, Columbia and then Philips, nothing happened and Madeline became a session singer. “Well, it was 1965, and I wasn’t getting any money. I went to a cinema and was offered £6 a week for 12 hours a day, six days a week. That same evening I was offered a session for six guineas for three hours, so I took that.” [...] In 1968, she covered Dee Dee Warwick’s I’m Gonna Make You Love Me. [...] I got a call from Philips in London to say that I had a record moving up the US charts and I had to go to America to promote it. [...] The band Blue Mink was formed by sessionmusicians. “I got a call from keyboard player Roger Coollum, who said that he and some guys were making an instrumental album but they thought it might sound boring so wanted to add a vocal track. I did the vocal and left, and two days later he phoned again saying that Roger Cook had written Melting Pot and thought it might work better as a duet. We did the song in two takes and they wanted to put it out as a single. That was in October 1969; it came out the next month, and we never had any intention of being a working band. They couldn’t come with a good name and the guitarist Vic Flick said, ‘How about something rare, something like Blue Mink?’ Wedisbanded four-and-a-half years later. We only split up because we were being ripped off by our manager.””
USA
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