Patti LaBelle
Patricia Louise Holt (born May 24, 1944),[1] known professionally as Patti LaBelle, is an American R&B singer, songwriter and actress. She has been referred to as the "Godmother of Soul".[2]
This article is about the singer. For her eponymous album, see Patti LaBelle (album).
Patti LaBelle
Patricia Louise Holt
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
- Singer
- songwriter
- actress
1960–present
- Epic
- Philadelphia Int'l
- MCA
- Def Soul Classics
- Umbrella
- Bungalo
- Resolution
She began her career in the early 1960s as lead singer and frontwoman of the vocal group Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles. After the group's name change to Labelle in the 1970s, they released the popular number-one hit "Lady Marmalade". As a result, after the group split in 1976, LaBelle began a successful solo career, starting with her critically acclaimed debut album, which included the career-defining song, "You Are My Friend". LaBelle became a mainstream solo star in 1984 following the success of the singles "If Only You Knew", "Love, Need and Want You" (later sampled for 2002's "Dilemma"), "New Attitude" and "Stir It Up". Less than two years later in 1986, LaBelle scored a number-one album Winner in You[3] and its number-one duet single, "On My Own", with Michael McDonald.[4]
In 1989, the standard "If You Asked Me To" (later covered by Celine Dion) was released on Be Yourself. LaBelle won a 1992 Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for her 1991 album Burnin', an album that featured "Somebody Loves You Baby (You Know Who It Is)", "Feels Like Another One", and "When You've Been Blessed (Feels Like Heaven)". She won a second Grammy for the live album Live! One Night Only. Her 1990s albums Burnin', Gems (1994), and Flame (1997) continued her popularity with young R&B audiences throughout the decade. She reunited with her Labelle bandmates for the album Back to Now which was followed by a well-received promotional tour.[1]
LaBelle also has had success as an actress with a role in the Oscar-nominated film A Soldier's Story, and in TV shows such as A Different World and American Horror Story: Freak Show. In 1992, LaBelle starred in her own TV sitcom Out All Night.
In 2002, LaBelle hosted her own lifestyle TV show, Living It Up with Patti LaBelle on TV One. In 2015, LaBelle took part in the dance competition Dancing with the Stars at the age of 70. Labelle has also seen success launching her own brand of bedding, cookbooks, and food for various companies. In 2015 her Patti's Sweet Potato Pie sold millions when a YouTube video praising the product went viral. As a result, over a 72-hour period, Walmart sold one pie every second.[5]
In a career which has spanned seven decades. She has sold more than 50 million records worldwide. She has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame, and the Apollo Theater Hall of Fame. She was included in Rolling Stone on their list of 100 Greatest Singers.[6][7] LaBelle is a dramatic soprano recognized for her vocal power, modal register range and emotive delivery.[8][9][10]
Early life and career[edit]
Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles[edit]
Patricia Louise Holt was born in the Eastwick section of Southwest Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was born the second youngest child of Henry (1919–1989) and Bertha (Robinson; 1916–1978) Holte's three children, and the next-to-youngest of five children overall. Her siblings were Thomas Hogan Jr. (1930–2013), Vivian Hogan (1932–1975), Barbara (1942–1982) and Jacqueline "Jackie" (1945–1989).[11] Her father was a railroad worker and club performer and her mother was a domestic. Despite enjoying her childhood, LaBelle would later write in her memoirs, Don't Block the Blessings, that her parents' marriage was abusive. Shortly after her parents' divorce, when LaBelle was twelve, she was sexually molested by a family friend.
She joined a local church choir at the Beulah Baptist Church at ten and performed her first solo two years later. While she was growing up, she listened to secular music styles such as R&B and jazz music as well.
When she was 16, LaBelle won a talent competition at her high school, John Bartram High School. The success led to her first singing group, the Ordettes, in 1960 with schoolmates Jean Brown, Yvonne Hogen, and Johnnie Dawson.[12] With LaBelle as the front woman, the group became a local attraction until two of its members left to marry, while another was forced to quit the group by her religious father.[13] In 1962, the Ordettes included three new members, Cindy Birdsong, Sarah Dash, and Nona Hendryx, the latter two girls had sung for another vocal group which was defunct at the time.[13] In the same year, they auditioned for local record label owner Harold Robinson. Robinson agreed to work with the group after hearing LaBelle sing the song "I Sold My Heart to the Junkman". Initially, Robinson was dismissive of LaBelle, believing her to be "too dark and too plain".[13]
Shortly after Robinson signed them, he had them record as the Blue Belles and they were selected to promote the recording of "I Sold My Heart to the Junkman", which had been recorded by The Starlets. It was recorded as a Blue Belles single due to label conflict.[13] The Starlets' manager sued Harold Robinson after the Blue Belles were seen performing a lip-synching version of the song on American Bandstand.[13] After settling out of court, Robinson altered the group's name to "Patti LaBelle and The Blue Belles".[13] Robinson gave Holte the name "LaBelle", which meant "the beautiful" in French. Initially, a Billboard ad cited the group as "Patti Bell and the Blue Bells".[14] In 1963, the group scored their first hit single with the ballad "Down the Aisle" which became a crossover top 40 hit on the Billboard pop and R&B charts after King Records issued it.
Later in the year, they recorded their rendition of the "You'll Never Walk Alone"; the single was later re-released on Cameo-Parkway Records where the group scored a second hit on the pop charts with the song in 1964. Another charted single, "Danny Boy", was released that same year. In 1965, after Cameo-Parkway folded, the group moved to New York and signed with Atlantic Records where they recorded twelve singles for the label, including the mildly charted singles "All or Nothing" and "Take Me for a Little While". The group's Atlantic tenure included their rendition of "Over the Rainbow" and a version of the song "Groovy Kind of Love". In 1967, Birdsong left the group to join The Supremes and by 1970 the group had been dropped from Atlantic Records as well as by their longtime manager Bernard Montague.
In 1970, Vicki Wickham, producer of the UK music show Ready, Steady, Go, agreed to manage the group after Dusty Springfield mentioned signing them. Wickham's first direction for the group was for them to change their name to simply Labelle and advised the group to renew their act, going for a more homegrown look and sound that reflected funk, rock, and psychedelic soul. In 1971, the group opened for the Who in several stops on the group's U.S. tour.
Solo career[edit]
Early solo career (1977–1984)[edit]
Signing a solo contract with Epic Records in 1977, LaBelle recruited David Rubinson, producer of Chameleon, to record her self-titled debut album, which was released that year. The album was noted for the disco hits, "Joy to Have Your Love" and "Dan Swit Me" and the gospel ballad, "You Are My Friend", the latter song becoming her first career-defining single despite its low entry on the R&B chart. Three more albums were released in succession on Epic through 1980 (Tasty, It's Alright with Me, and Released), with the songs "Eyes in the Back of My Head", "Little Girls", "Music is My Way of Life", "Come What May", "Release (The Tension)" and "I Don't Go Shopping" (the latter song co-written by Peter Allen) being the most successful.
After four albums on Epic, LaBelle signed with Philadelphia International Records where she recorded a notable version of "Over the Rainbow" on the album The Spirit's in It. In 1982, she was featured on the Grover Washington duet "The Best Is Yet to Come", and earned accolades that year for starring in the Broadway musical Your Arms Too Short to Box with God. "The Best Is Yet to Come" later earned LaBelle her first Grammy Award nomination. In 1983, LaBelle released her breakthrough album I'm in Love Again which included her first top ten R&B singles, with "Love, Need and Want You" and "If Only You Knew", the latter song also becoming her first number-one single as a solo artist in early 1984. Later in 1984, she scored another hit with Bobby Womack on the song "Love Has Finally Come at Last" and made her film debut as Big Mary in the film A Soldier's Story, co-writing two original songs for the film's soundtrack.
Charity work, foundations and activism[edit]
LaBelle has supported numerous charities and foundations. She is strongly committed to peace by promoting access to education, healthcare, housing, employment and equality of justice.[46] She has served on several national boards as a devoted advocate for health causes, including Diabetes, Aids, Alzheimer's, and Cancer.[47]
In 1987, LaBelle became a spokesperson for the 'National Minority AIDS council' and promoted the "Live Long, Sugar" campaign to encourage people of color to seek treatment for AIDS.[48] She used her influence to raise awareness around the AIDS crisis and the treatment of gay and lesbian community.[49] She has been a vocal about her support for the LGBT community and has performed at numerous pride events.[50][51][52]
Personal life[edit]
LaBelle dropped out of Philadelphia's John Bartram High School just a semester before graduating in 1962. LaBelle returned to the school in her mid-thirties and later earned her diploma.
LaBelle wrote that she was sexually assaulted by Jackie Wilson while at the Brevoort Theatre in Brooklyn in the 1960s.[53][54] Around 1964, LaBelle was engaged to Otis Williams, founding member of The Temptations. The engagement lasted a year before Patti broke it off after fearing Williams would force her to move to Detroit and retire from the road.
On July 23, 1969, LaBelle married a longtime friend, Armstead Edwards, who was a schoolteacher. After LaBelle started her solo career, Edwards became her manager, a position he would remain in until 2000. That year, LaBelle and Edwards legally separated, with their divorce finalized in 2003. They have a son, Zuri Kye Edwards (born July 17, 1973), who is now her manager. After Zuri's birth, LaBelle suffered from postpartum depression for a year and said singer-songwriter Laura Nyro helped to take care of Zuri while LaBelle recovered. Through Zuri (whose name means "good" in Swahili), LaBelle is a grandmother of two girls and one boy.
Members of LaBelle's family died at young ages. Her mother Bertha died in October 1978 from diabetes at the age of 62.[55] Her father, Henry Holte Jr., died of complications from emphysema and Alzheimer's disease in October 1989 at the age of 70.
All three of LaBelle's sisters died young. Eldest sister Vivian Hogan Rogers died of lung cancer in October 1975 at the age of 43. Seven years later, in October 1982, her elder sister Barbara Holte Purifoy died from complications of colon cancer at the age of 40. In July 1989, three months before her father's death, LaBelle lost her youngest sister, Jacqueline "Jackie" Holte-Padgett, to brain cancer at the age of 43. A day after the singer buried Padgett, an emotionally-wrecked LaBelle shot the music video to "If You Asked Me To" where she was seen crying in various shots; the video was shot on what would have been Padgett's 44th birthday. The singer dedicated her 1991 Burnin' album, and her famous rendition of the song "Wind Beneath My Wings" during her concert tour in 1991–92 to Padgett.
LaBelle said that because of her sisters and parents dying "before their time", she wrote in her autobiography that she feared she would not make it to 50. Once she reached that age, however, the singer said she felt her life "had just begun". A year later, LaBelle was diagnosed as having diabetes and later became a spokesperson for several organizations dedicated in fighting the disease.
She has a home in the Philadelphia suburb of Wynnewood and also has condos in Los Angeles and in Eleuthera, the Bahamas.[56] LaBelle is an honorary member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.[57]
Civil suits[edit]
In 2010, LaBelle supposedly yelled at a woman and spilled water on her baby; that happened in the lobby of the Trump Place Apartments in Manhattan. LaBelle agreed to a settlement of $100,000 to avoid a trial. The family donated the award to a charity.[58]
In June 2011, a West Point cadet filed a civil suit against LaBelle after he was allegedly assaulted by her bodyguards at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas. LaBelle and her entourage were on their way to a gig in Louisiana when Richard King, a 23-year-old cadet on spring break, was waiting to be picked up in the ride-share area. King alleged that Labelle's entourage attacked him, causing a concussion, Labelle's entourage said that he had provoked the attack. King lost his court case after five days of testimony.[59][60] King was suspended from the U.S. Military Academy. He sued LaBelle and Holmes for assault, seeking $1 million in civil court. LaBelle filed a counter-suit. Efrem Holmes, Labelle's bodyguard, was acquitted of misdemeanor assault on November 12, 2013, stemming from the incident.[61]
Pop culture[edit]
Patti LaBelle has been described as "the greatest gay icon of all time and a prime example of the intersection of the LGBT community and black female artists".[62] In a 2017 interview, she said: "when I think about it, the gay fans are some of the reason–one big reason–I'm still standing, 'cause they loved me when other people tried not to. Everybody always says, "What makes gay men like you?" "I have no clue," I say. I still don't. But I know that love has lifted me up for many, many years."[63] The New York Times said is one of three of America's Most Beloved Divas (alongside Dolly Parton and Barbra Streisand).[64]
LaBelle is the primary character on the popular web parody Got 2B Real.[65] During the 2010s, her performance of "This Christmas" at the 1996 National Tree Lighting Ceremony broadcast live on C-SPAN began going viral annually during the holiday season due to LaBelle's reactions to technical difficulties and other performance challenges.[66] The viral video is referenced in LaBelle's A Black Lady Sketch Show appearance, including the episode's title.
LaBelle made some headlines in late 2015 when James Wright (No Channel), a vlogger spoke enthusiastically on YouTube of her brand of sweet potato pies. The video quickly went viral and for a time, one pie sold every second at Walmart, selling out at stores across the country. She has appeared in two Walmart commercials[67] also an Old Spice commercial.[68]