Kilgore was born in
Shreveport, Louisiana, and was brought up in
Oakland, California. She began singing in
church. Her first
recording, on which she was billed as Theola Kilgord, was as the featured vocalist on "Look to the Hills" by the Mount Zion Spiritual Choir, released in 1955. While working as a gospel singer in the late 1950s, she befriended
Sam Cooke's
talent manager,
J. W. Alexander, who introduced her to singer and record producer,
Ed Townsend. Her first secular recording was "The Sound of My Man (Working on a Chain Gang)", an
answer record to Cooke's 1960
hit, "
Chain Gang". She registered her biggest hit with "The Love of My Man", an adaptation of "The Love of God" as recorded by the
Soul Stirrers. The
record, on the Serock label, a subsidiary of
Scepter Records, reached No. 3 on the R&B charts in 1963, and No. 21 on the
Billboard Hot 100 chart. Her follow-up record, "This Is My Prayer", reached No. 60 on the Hot 100 chart, after which Kilgore and Townsend launched their own KT label. Kilgore toured widely, but later follow-ups, mostly arranged by
René Hall, were less successful. She also recorded for
Mercury Records. One of her later singles, "It's Gonna Be Alright", became popular on the UK
Northern Soul scene. She died in Los Angeles, California, in 2005. ==References==