|
Still shining
Patti LaBelle's star, which first rose in the 1960s, shines ever brightly
in the 1990s. The 1993 album, Patti LaBelle LIVE! yielded a 1994 Grammy nomination (her eighth) for the single "All Right
Now." She's currently featured on the superstar-gathering album Rhythm, Country & Blues, in a heartbreaking rendition
of "When Something Is Wrong With My Baby" with Travis Tritt, and she appeared with him and the album's other artists on a
PBS special that documented this collaboration between the best artists in country and soul. She'll be spending the summer
on the road in the Budweiser SuperFest Tour. And later this fall, she'll embark on another solo concert tour.
The 1994 excitement comes on the heels of a triumphant 1993. Patti
won an American Music Award for Favorite R&B Female Artist, which now stands alongside her Grammy Award for her hit album,
Burnin'. Her Still Patti concert tour was a smash across the U.S. and Canada and is now available on home video. She joined
Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin and a host of other luminaries in a 40th birthday salute to Oprah Winfrey, and brought down
the house in a televised Christmas concert performed for President and Mrs. Clinton in Washington.
La Belle's busy year continued with fellow superstars Elton John, Michael
Bolton and Paula Abdul on the Disney Channel's special televised concert, For the Children, benefiting the Pediatric AIDS
Foundation; duet recordings with Ronnie Milsap and Michael Crawford; and a reunion with her "Sisters in the Name of Love"
co-stars Gladys Knight and Dionne Warwick to record "Superwoman" for Knight's '93 album -- a collaboration that snared Grammy
nominations for the three powerhouse vocalists. Patti also did double duty for NBC, starring in her own television series,
Out All Night (now seen regularly on BET) and continuing her recurring role on the hit series A Different World, right up
until its last episode. And she returned to her church roots in the critically acclaimed PBS special, Going Home to Gospel
With Patti LaBelle, a program that is now an encore highlight of public television fundraising drives around the country.
But the recent honor LaBelle holds most dear to her heart is her inclusion
on the fabled Hollywood Boulevard "Walk of Fame." In March 1993, in front of thousands of fans, actress Whoopi Goldberg and
"Mayor of Hollywood" Johnny Grant hosted the ceremony, during which her gold star rightfully took its place alongside the
entertainment world's other legendary greats. The event meant all the more to her because her devoted fans raised the money
to purchase her star -- a touching indication of the esteem in which the public holds her.
In every year, Patti LaBelle gives as much of herself offstage as on.
Among her many charitable activities, Patti serves as the spokeswoman for the National Cancer Institute to help alert women
to the importance of early breast cancer detection -- a cause close to her heart, because the disease claimed the lives of
her mother and three sisters. This year, she'll receive the Howard University Hospital Legacy of Leadership award for her
cancer awareness efforts, and she consistently lends her extraordinary talents to numerous benefits in the fight against AIDS.
BUILDING THE MAGIC
Perhaps more than any other contemporary artist, the singular Patti LaBelle has been true to herself
in every varied phase of her musical career. In the 1960s, she led the superstar "girl group" Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells;
in the '70s, she was the driving force of rock's first all female band, LaBelle; and in the '80s, her talent as a solo artist
dominated the music scene. Patti LaBelle has had numerous hits from "Down the Aisle" and "Danny Boy" with the Bluebells, to
"Lady Marmalade" and "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" with La Belle, to her solo triumphs, "New Attitude," "Stir It
Up," "On My Own" and "Somebody Loves You Baby."
Patti's shimmering talent can be consistently counted on, but it's
difficult to predict what, with her passion for fashion, she will wear next or what she will do with her flamboyant hair.
It's also impossible to predict what she'll say; Patti has always been open, down-to-earth and ever-ready to speak her mind.
And no matter what she's doing in her career -- a television special such as the annual Essence Awards; top-drawer movies
like A Soldier's Story or the USA Cable dramatization of the Delta Airlines crash, Fire and Rain; or championing her other
favorite causes (adoption, foster care, Big Sisters and the United Negro College Fund) -- fans can always depend on Patti
LaBelle being unabashedly Patti: caring, good natured, straightforward.
Born May 24, 1944 (Patti has always been frank about her age), Patti
was raised in the melting pot of Southwest Philly. Although affected by her parents' separation when she was only 12, Patti
lived a happy, wholesome teenage life -- running track, singing in the glee club and acting in plays at John Bartram High
School. But her extraordinary musical gift emerged most clearly in the Beulah Baptist Church Choir, where she remained a soloist
even after embarking on a professional career.
Patti was still only a teenager when she and Cindy Birdsong (later
a member of the Supremes) sang with the Ordettes. When two girls left the group, Nona Hendrix and Sarah Dash signed on and
Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells was born. This was in 1961. By the following year, the girls had their first multimillion
seller, "I Sold My Heart to the Junkman. " With other hits, including "All Or Nothing" and "You'll Never Walk Alone," the
Bluebells accrued a devoted following and a status as one of the foremost girl groups of the era.
Then in the late '60s, when British rock was eclipsing the homegrown
girl-group, California and Motown sounds in the U.S., the Bluebells toured England, playing to wildly enthusiastic audiences.
But a musical revolution had obviously taken place worldwide. So when British producer Vicki Wickham, impressed by the Bluebells'
still-untapped talents, offered to effect a stylistic transformation, the group consented. The result was LaBelle, a trio
of massive musical power and political sensibility that was consistently ahead of its time.
The trend-setting singer/songwriter Laura Nyro, long a Bluebells fan,
was even more impressed by LaBelle and recorded her landmark album, It's Gonna Take a Miracle, with the group. The recording
itself was a miracle, created jam-session style during two intense weeks in a small Philadelphia studio. Shortly thereafter
Warner Brothers released the group's first albums, LaBelle and Moon Shadow. Pressure Cookin' soon followed on RCA. But it
was Nightbirds, LaBelle's first Epic album, that sent the group soaring into the superstar stratosphere, largely on the strength
of "Lady Marmalade" ("Voulez-Vous Couchez Avec Moi Ce Soir?") which became a disco anthem of the '70s.
Extensive tours and two more popular albums, Phoenix and Chameleon
, followed -- but the burden of being musical trailblazers eventually became too great. "Rocked and rolled out," as Patti
describes it, the group disbanded on good terms in 1976.
ON HER OWN
Patti took a brief hiatus to spend more time with her family, catch her breath after more than 15
years on the road, and to consider what creative road she next wanted to travel. In the late '70s, with the guidance of her
husband L. Armstead Edwards as manager and James "Budd" Ellison as producer/musical director, she embarked on a solo career.
During the next several years, Patti was kept busy with new albums
(Released and The Spirit's In It), new tours, television specials, and most importantly, a starring role in Vinette Carroll's
Your Arms Too Short to Box With God. Her performance tapped deep into the heart of Patti's gospel roots, won her new favor
in the critics' eyes, and brought her (along with co-star Al Green) to Broadway for the first time. Since then, she's had
three more hugely successful one-woman concert engagements on the Great White Way.
In the early '80s, mega-hit popularity on the musical charts inexplicably
eluded her -- despite marvelous single releases like "The Best Is Yet to Come" (with Grover Washington, Jr.), "Love Has Finally
Come at Last" (with Bobby Womack) and "If You Only Knew." Superstardom anointed her again, however, with two hits from the
Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack: "New Attitude" and "Stir It Up."
Those hits were followed by her 1985 debut album for MCA Records, Winner
in You, which went platinum thanks to sizzlers like "On My Own" (with Michael McDonald), "Oh, People," "Kiss Away the Pain"
and "Something Special." She hushed, then whipped the crowd into a frenzy at Live Aid; left the audience speechless on NBC-TV's
Emmy-winning Motown Salutes the Apollo; was one of the first artists (at Coretta King's request) to musically commemorate
the inaugural celebration of the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday; rivaled Miss Liberty herself at the closing ceremonies
of the Statue of Liberty celebrations; starred in her own NBC TV special (with guests Bill Cosby, Cyndi Lauper and Luther
Vandross); criss-crossed the country on several national tours; knocked 'em dead in Europe and Japan; made two more movies,
Unnatural Causes (with Alfred Woodard and John Ritter) and Sing (with Lorraine Bracco and Louise Lasser). In the late '80s
and early '90s, a triumphant Patti continued to release chart-topping albums, including Be Yourself and This Christmas. As
a musical artist, Patti LaBelle remains unrivaled and unstoppable.
Little wonder then that Patti has been honored with numerous awards:
Philadelphia's Key to the City, a medal from the Congressional Black Caucus, a citation from Congress on her 20th anniversary
in the music business, another citation from President Reagan, a cable ACE, the B'nai B'rith Creative Achievement Award, two
NAACP Entertainer of the Year Awards, the NAACP Image Award (for three consecutive years), the Ebony Achievement Award, the
Martin Luther King Lifetime Achievement Award, three Emmy nominations, eight Grammy nominations and a 1992 Grammy Award for
Best R&B Female Vocal Performance for her album Burnin'. Also, for her work on behalf of cancer awareness, a special research
laboratory for cancer was dedicated in her honor at the famed Sylvester Comprehensive Care Center at the University of Miami.
All of this amounts to extraordinary acknowledgment of even more extraordinary
efforts and accomplishments. However, LaBelle is the first to remind everyone that her most important role is that of wife
and mother (she's Mom to one teenaged boy, two adopted sons in their late 20s and the son and daughter of her late sister
Jackie). When Patti's not setting the world on its ear, she's home (still Philadelphia), cooking, shopping, doing laundry
-- being a person -- just like everyone else. To really be a star, you have to have your feet planted firmly on the proverbial
ground, and Patti LaBelle is rooted. She means it when she tells her fans, "I'm just like you, only I make records." She forgets
to add that she's also the hardest-working lady in show business. But in spite of her constant musical work, her rising acting
career and her charitable heart ever in the right place, she's just being herself -- a "gem" in the truest sense of the word.
|
