Critical Noir: LaBelle: SuperSheroes of the Soul Universe
By Mark Anthony Neal, AOL BlackVoices columnist
"If Aretha Franklin is the Queen of Soul, then these three young women are the High Priestesses." -- Gail Berkley
Several decades before Patti LaBelle became the "voice" that tears the house down, she was simply Patsy Holte, the lead singer of a group called the BlueBelles (later Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles). That group, which included Sarah Dash, Nona Hendryx and Cindy Birdsong (before she defected to The Supremes to replace Florence Ballard in 1967), was a chitlin' circuit favorite recording turntable hits such as 'I Sold My Heart to the Junkman,' 'You'll Never Walk Alone,' and the initial version of Patti's signature tune 'Over the Rainbow.' Had the group not recorded another note after they were dropped from their label in 1969, their legacy as a solid, if not spectacular '60s girl group would have been intact. But thanks to an intervention by Vickie Wickham, host of the British variety show, 'Ready, Steady, Go,' the best was yet to come.
Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells first came into contact with Vickie Wickham when the group toured the UK in the late 1960s. When the group was dropped by Atlantic, they sought -- new management and Wickham agreed to do the job, but with one change. The group, now a trio, would simply be known as LaBelle. As Patti recounts in her autobiography 'Don't Block the Blessings,' Wickham had a clear sense of where she wanted the group to go. LaBelle would be "Bold, brash, brazen. It was going to be revolutionary." According to Patti, what Wickham meant by this was that the group's music was going to be "political, progressive, passionate... three black women singing about racism, sexism and eroticism." The group signed with Warner Brothers and released their debut 'LaBelle' in 1971. The first single from that recording was 'Morning Much Better,' which celebrated, to Patti's dismay, sex in the morning. LaBelle was not your mama's girl group. These were three grown black women celebrating their femininity and sexuality in an era where all the rules about race, gender and sexuality were about to be rewritten and the music of LaBelle would be a critical component of this brave new world.
The hallmarks of LaBelle's debut and follow-up 'Moon Shadow' (1972) were genre-bending remakes of classic rock recordings and the provocative songwriting of Nona Hendryx. 'Moonshadow,' for example, features a remake of The Who's 'Won't Get Fooled Again' (the opening theme to 'CSI Miami') and Cat Stevens' (Yusef Islam) 'Moonshadow.' When LaBelle sings the chorus to 'Won't Get Fooled Again' (I'll tip my hat to the new constitution/Take a bow for the new revolution) the song is pregnant with the spirits of both the Black Power movement and the burgeoning feminist movement, but with the sensibilities that black women uniquely brought to both. In the case of Stevens' folk classic, LaBelle takes the song and its intent straight to church for an extended nine-minute sermon. When one hears 'Shade of Difference' (We don't care if you fade away/We gonna save the world today), penned by Patti and Hendryx, it was clear that LaBelle was redefining what black women and women in general could sing about. As Patti told Africana.com last year, "I think we did something. I think we helped make it easier for the girl groups like Destiny's Child. Yeah, we did our work. We paid a few dues."
Part of the price that LaBelle paid for their provocative style -- both in music and clothing -- was that it took a long time for the buying public and commercial radio to catch on. That all changed with the breakout success of 'Lady Marmalade' (1974), which sold over a million copies. 'Lady Marmalade' celebrated not just sex, but women who were in control of their sexuality. The song is most well known for the French lyric: Vouslez vous coucher avec moi, c'est soir?" which, of course, translates into "Would you like to sleep with me tonight?" When LaBelle appeared on 'Cher' in 1975, television censors forced the group to change the lyric and to also tone down their outfits. At the time, the only way most commentators could describe LaBelle was to call them "Space Age R&B," to which Patti responded, "We are futuristic but we are not outer-space or spaced out. We are about inner space." Indeed, LaBelle was before its time and when we hear the music of MeShell Ndegeocello, Erykah Badu and Ani DiFranco we are hearing the legacy of a trio of black women who were willing to be just that.
March 16, 2005