She began her music career in the latter city as a member of a quartet called the Feminiques starting in 1969.
[1] Pennington’s career began picking up considerable steam after she connected with British songwriter and producer Ian Levine, who had traveled to Chicago in 1975 in large part to meet her.
He was intrigued by how similar her voice sounded to that of Linda Jones (which was by design, since she trained her voice by mimicking Jones, Chaka Khan, and other notable female soul singers of the era), and he appreciated that she simultaneously brought her own style to her music, so he signed her to Island Records.
Then, in 1976, Pennington released her single “Twenty Four Hours A Day,” which gained considerable popularity among Northern Soul fans in the UK.
Martin Davis subsequently signed the single to United Artists Records,[2] after which it released in the US and hit #4 on the Billboard Disco Chart in 1977.