LaBelle, Patti

Patti LaBelle

Singer, songwriter, actress

LaBelle Disbanded

Launched Successful Solo Career

Pursued Acting

Selected discography

Sources

Patti LaBelle is a musical veteran who started singing in pop groups as a teenager. As the leader of Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells (known briefly as the Blue Belles in the early 1960s), she rose to some notoriety with a few hit singles. That group was renamed LaBelle in 1971, and with flashy outfits and wild hairdos, its three members soared to fame with the racy single “Lady Marmalade,” which featured LaBelle’s trademark screams and lung-bursting notes. After the trio’s breakup, LaBelle launched her own solo career, which has turned her into a musical superstar.

LaBelle grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was part of the group the Ordettes while still a teenager. She formed Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells in 1961 with Nona Hendryx, Sarah Dash, and Cindy Birdsong (Birdsong left in 1967 to join the Supremes). The group had several hit singles, including “I Sold My Heart to the Junkman,” 1962, “Danny Boy,” 1964, and “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” 1964. They achieved some level of success, but overall, they lacked the kind of gimmicky trademark they needed to distinguish them from the multitude of female groups that flourished in the sixties.

That was to change in 1970 when an Englishwoman named Vicki Wickham took over management of the group and suggested they change their name to LaBelle. The adventurous woman encouraged them to don wild costumes, adopt extreme hairstyles, and put on outrageous stage shows. The group soon earned a cult following and had the distinction of being the first black band to play at the Metropolitan Opera House. It was in this venue that they introduced their only number one hit, “Lady Marmalade,” a rousing screamer about a New Orleans hooker. One of LaBelle’s more outrageous tactics while touring with this group was to be lowered on guy wires to the stage for her opening.

Rumors circulated that LaBelle and manager Wickham were constantly fighting and that it was tearing the group apart. In an article in the Chicago Tribune, Wickham commented, “We would fight, but we had great rapport. I remember in New York once when we were arguing about a song, Pat suddenly slammed the table and said, ‘That’s it. I can’t do it. I’m going back to Philadelphia.’ A few minutes later, the bell rang and there was Patti. I asked if that meant we could do the song. She said, ‘No, but we can fight about it some more.’”

LaBelle Disbanded

Eventually, however, the group’s artistic differences caused them to split. LaBelle insisted that it was an amicable break. “Each of us had these individual ideas

For the Record…

Born Patricia Louise Holte, October 4, 1944, in Philadelphia, PA; daughter of Henry Holte; married Armstead Edwards, 1969; children: Zuri, Stanley Stocker, Dodd Stocker.

Sang in band the Ordettes as a teenager; formed group the Blue Belles, later called Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells, in the early 1960s, with Nona Hendryx, Sara Dash, and Cindy Birdsong (Birdsong left in 1967); renamed group LaBelle, 1971, and recorded hit single “Lady Marmalade”; disbanded, 1976, and began solo recording career. Starred in musical Your Arms Too Short to Box With God for two years; appeared in TV programs Sisters in the Name of Love with Dionne Warwick and Gladys Knight, HBO, July 18, 1986, A Different World, NBC-TV, and series Up All Night, 1992—; played part in film A Soldier’s Story, 1984. Owner of boutique La Belle Amis in Philadelphia.

Awards: Winner in You went platinum, 1986; NAACP awards, 1986 and 1992; Grammy Award, 1992, for best female vocal performance.

Addresses: Agent —Armstead Edwards, PAZ Entertainment Management Co., 2041 Locust St., Philadelphia, PA 19103. Record company —MCA Records, 70 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, CA 91602.

about how things should go, and we were no longer jelling as a group,” she confessed in Ebony. “If we had tried to stay together we would have been constantly clashing, and the audience would have noticed it. It was better for us... to break up the group while it was still popular.” In 1976, the three women ended their 16-year-long collaboration.

Following the breakup, LaBelle was riddled with self-doubt. Although she wanted a solo career, she didn’t know whether it was in the stars. “I sat around thinking about all those tales about ‘three strikes and you’re out’ and ‘the third time is the charm’ and, you know, all the negative things,” she told Ebony. Although this lack of self-confidence didn’t show in her disarming stage performances, it began to weigh her down.

LaBelle’s family also felt the strain of this change in her career, and she and her husband were not communicating well. After a tough decision to seek professional help, the couple began to mend their relationship. As a result, LaBelle’s husband, Armstead Edwards, began to help manage his wife’s career. A big contract was negotiated with Epic Records, as well as a concert tour to get her solo career started. LaBelle related in Ebony that she knew she “had to get back on that stage. I confronted all of that self-doubt and the other negative things.”

Launched Successful Solo Career

LaBelle’s solo career was marked by performances to packed audiences. She began to tone down her costumes from her LaBelle days. Although she worked steadily, it was not until the 1986 album Winner in You that she attained truly mainstream appeal. That, along with “New Attitude,” a rousing tribute to self-determination included on the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack, put LaBelle in the spotlight once again. She was well on her way to a comeback enjoyed by such performers as Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner. In fact, LaBelle commented in Newsweek, “When I saw Tina finally getting what she deserved, it did give me more confidence. I did think, maybe I can do that.”

A stirring duet with ex-Doobie Brother Michael McDonald, “On My Own,” also won much airwave play. “The contrast between Mr. McDonald’s creamy soulfulness and Miss LaBelle’s rugged, spontaneous effusions help to create the sense of an actual personal drama unfolding,” Stephen Holden noted in a New York Times review.

Pursued Acting

LaBelle was also taking on different roles on the stage, screen, and television. In 1982 she starred in the Broadway hit Your Arms Too Short to Box With God. A television special and roles in the feature film A Soldier’s Story and the hit series A Different World. By 1992, she was cast as a club owner/landlady in her own television series, Up All Night. The singer continued to be known for her energetic concerts, which some likened to a revival meeting. And her wild hairdos were back, this time with an angular, lacquered, wigged-out look.

LaBelle had another breakthrough album with Burnin’ in 1991. The pop diva used her strong, nasal-edged voice to perfection on such songs as “Feels Like Another One” and “Somebody Loves You Baby.” To her complete surprise, LaBelle captured a Grammy Award for her work on the record—her first after being in the business for over 32 years. She dedicated the award to her mother and three sisters, all of whom had passed away.

Despite her rousing onstage performances, LaBelle is an admitted homebody who is more comfortable on a stage with five hundred people than one-on-one. “Although I love my career,” LaBelle explained in Essence, “long ago I realized I couldn’t be happy if I weren’t married, if I didn’t have a man to take care of, a house to keep.” The singer is admittedly a great cook and is often seen making her own dinners in hotels while she is on the road.

The two sides of LaBelle include the cozy homemaker and the complete showstopper. With an electrifying voice that seems to defy human boundaries, LaBelle continues to make her mark in the music world. “I could never give up performing,” LaBelle claimed in Essence. “If I didn’t sing, I’d be a crazy woman. Onstage is the one place where I can open up, vent my hostility, cry out my pain. And that has freed me to be a better wife and mother.”

Selected discography

With LaBelle

(As Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells) Dreamer, Atlantic, 1967.

LaBelle, Warner Brothers, 1971.

(With Laura Nyro) Gonna Take a Miracle, Columbia, 1971.

Moonshadow, Warner Brothers, 1972.

Pressure Cookin’, RCA, 1973.

Nightbirds, Epic, 1974.

Phoenix, Epic, 1975.

Chameleon, Epic, 1976.

Solo Albums

Patti LaBelle, Columbia, 1977.

Tasty, Epic.

It’s Alright with Me, Columbia, 1979.

Released, Columbia, 1980.

Best of Patti LaBelle, Columbia, 1981.

Winner in You, MCA, 1986.

Burnin’, MCA, 1991.

Also contributed backup vocals to comedian Eddie Murphy’s single “Yeah.”

Sources

Chicago Tribune, March 16, 1986.

Ebony, September 1978; April 1986; March 1989; May 1991.

Entertainment Weekly, October 18, 1991; May 29, 1992.

Essence, October 1985; May 1990; March 1991.

Harper’s, August 1986.

Jet, June 26, 1989; July 16, 1990; December 24, 1990; January 21, 1991.

Musician, July 1986.

Newsweek, July 21, 1986.

New York Times, July 6, 1986; November 7, 1991.

People, June 16, 1986; July 21, 1986.

Premiere, February 1989.

Rolling Stone, June 19, 1986.

—Nancy Rampson