The year is 1975, at The Metropolitan Opera House, but the audience isn’t the sophisticated, suffocated, stuck-up crowd you might expect. There are bearded men with heavy makeup, West Village drag queens, people in chapless bottoms, afro-punks. People like Debbie Allen, Cher, and the Cycle Sluts sat in the audience. The theme of the night was “Wear Something Silver”, and the audience did just that, being a sea of silver, queer excellence. From the very back of the stage, a voice crawls its way off the stage, onto the main floor, gently nudging against the ears of the audience. They look up. Carefully, but not fearfully, a feathered lady strides all the way up to the front of the stage, with all the grace of an ethereal bird not from Earth. From her lips, come the words “Nightbirds fly by the light of the moon, she’s flying high and all alone.”
In 1967, after eight years performing as Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles since 1959, Sarah Dash, Nona Hendyrx, and Cindy Birdsong had little to no success. They never got the proper performance training that those in Motown had received with people like Charles “Cholly” Atkins or Maxine Powell, and they didn’t get any major record labels until 1965, with Atlantic Records. Even so, when barely a year later Aretha Franklin signed and all the attention went to her, The Bluebelles were dropped only five years later. Their manager left them, and their partner, Cindy Birdsong, left them for The Supremes. They essentially became chickens without heads. It wasn’t until Vicki Wingham, under the recommendation of Dusty Springfield, offered to take over as manager and rebrand the trio from just another girl group to the space queens of rock-n-soul under the group name LaBelle.
Most people in the West are familiar with their song Lady Marmalade, whether it be the original or the one recorded by Christina Aguliera, Mya, Pink, and Little Kim in 2001. In 1974 it became their number one hit, allowing for both the song and their album to become international. This subsequently led to getting a lead cover becoming the first contemporary vocal group to do so. Unfortunately, that was also the only song that people chose to acknowledge from the band, and their albums continued to fall off the further they moved on. LaBelle wasn’t just the black version of Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd. They were their own unique creature, what I would consider the continued generation of rockers after the Little Richards and Chuck Berry. They couldn’t be considered pure funk-rock like the Funkadelics but also couldn’t be categorized as hard rock like Jimi Hendrix (fun fact: he’s Nona Hendryx’s distant cousin).
If only people had looked just a little further or paid attention to the album title, they would have found the song “Nightbirds” which eclipses all other songs in the album for me. Nightbirds, to me, is the song that alternative black women would have been listening to in their beds or looking at the sky as a black women anthem. It’s equivalent to Tapestry by Carol King or Champagne Problems by Taylor Swift for white women. The song manages to bridge the gap between rock and soul, with the calm instrumentation you may love to hear in your favorite alt songs, with voices that you’d associate with a black choir, creating a cozy yet uplifting feeling for the listener. Patti LaBelle gently calls out “Nightbirds fly by the light of the moon, makes no difference if it’s only a game” on the waves of the soft spoken music. On this same album is the brash “You Turn Me On” which was very forward of reclaiming sexuality within womanhood without adding into caricatures made to demonize black women in their sexuality. Lyrics like “I come like a pouring rain, each time you call my name, it’s good what you’re doin, what you’re doin” hold an honest, conversational tone of sexuality that women, even in the ‘70s, were not expected to carry. Might I add that Nona Hendryx penned these two and the vast majority of the songs sung by them!
LaBelle broke away from the Christian-based respectability politics that were placed most heavily on women from their first, self-named: LaBelle, comprised mostly of covers. The first single released from this group was “Morning Much Better” which transformed Ten Wheel Drive’s shanty-country-like song into a traditional rock song with Patti LaBelle at the lead, demanding that she does it in the night rather than morning. LaBelle was always a group based on sexual liberation, ditching bouffant wigs and dresses for afros and bell-bottoms. They maintained this theme throughout the six albums they produced, but they were also much deeper than that. To say that they were the first group of women to say something meaningful in songs would just be a lie, but to say that they said some of the most insightful things in music is absolutely true. Take “Shades of Difference” from the same album, a playful double entendre song that ultimately calls for people of all differences, race-related and beyond, to come together. In my opinion it rivals songs with similar themes like The Beatles’ “Come Together” or The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” with LaBelle saying “Shades of differences, we got, we got, we got!” in their own version of a crowd. Speaking of “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” that’s the song LaBelle covered in their second album that had gentler instrumentals with a larger emphasis on vocals, which was different, but fantastic! This album embodies the political consciousness I spoke about earlier that I would argue was even more present than the frank sexuality LaBelle carried.
Cat Stevens’ “Moonshadow” would be the probable candidate for the star of the album, and I wouldn’t be mad at you if you felt it was. It turns the soft folk song into a rhythm and rock musical that shockingly never saw the charts. While the original is something you would sing to a child, LaBelle’s version is an action-adventure journey on its own. The nine minute long song included Patti LaBelle going through each of the instruments and their players, one by one, ending with a resounding choral “Siiiiiiingggg!” as if to remind the audience where they were. That being said, the true star of the album is “I Believe I Finally Made it Home.” The Nona Hendryx penned song that speaks to “upstairs,” which may be referring to the system or people, about finding liberation within oneself. The fairly gentle melody is on the same level as Donny Hathaway’s “Someday We’ll Be Free” Sam Cooke’s “Change Gonna Come,” and Nina Simone’s “Young Gifted and Black.” While it doesn’t specifically mention black or queer people, knowledge of the group and the bisexual icon that is Nina Hendryx would make it evident to even a blind man. This is one of the first and most honest songs about mental health in a society hateful towards black people, queer people, and women, all of which Nona Hendryx held. Hendryx rejects the notions of the world after being made to consume it with quotes “So I tried / Some U.S. stamped information” but ultimately for her, “It was a little too late / And out of date / For my emancipation.” The song essentially details a person who has been indoctrinated with the ideologies of the United States; those may include racism, homophobia, the drive for war, and corruption in politics, especially in 1972. Hendryx is at a Eureka moment of realization from the start of the song, where she realizes that everything she learned is wrong and that disdain of the system and acceptance of self is right. Seeing as everyone is a byproduct of said system, LaBelle spends the majority of the song reassuring those around them that they are in fact sane, it’s the world around them that isn’t. When pairing the lyrics with the steady, emotional rise of the song, you can’t help but feel as if you’ve finally made it home yourself, making this easily the most poignant song on the album.
The year 1973 was when LaBelle made their official switch to Glam Rockers. Under the guidance of fashion designer Larry LeGaspi, LaBelle went from a group of black women dished out with the latest fashions to something that may have appeared in an Andy Warhol film, mirroring the Grace Joneses and David Bowies of the rock world. With this change came one of their most politically charged cover songs “Something in the Air / The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” This mashup went together like cornbread and collard greens, combining Thunderclap Newman’s very general ‘come together’ song and Gil-Scott Heron’s blunt rap about societal changes not being constrained and confined under the comfort of a TV show. “Something in the Air” is meant to reel audiences in and speak on the general message of progressiveness in a way that people of all backgrounds, young and old, can understand. Then, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” is thrown at you, like a veil being lifted, where Sarah Dash, Nona Hendryx, and Patti LaBelle are almost shouting at you by calling out any sunshine and lollipops, woosah-woosah, kumbaya- ideas of revolutions that you think will occur. After the song calls you (let’s be real, white people and “we can’t upset the whites” black folk) out, it brings you back in with the song “Something in the Air” line having the lines “right now” on repeat, like a parent scolding their kid in a shopping center in a “I’m not upset, just disappointed, but don’t do it again” type of way. This served as one of the more experimental types of songs that they sang, as well as the swift and eerie “Pressure Cookin’” album. This era for LaBelle was also the most poignant era in alliances with queer people. Many glam rockers of this era were all about “the outcasts” and “abandoned kids,” as long as they were cis-het white men that like to drink, smoke, and be a menace (double-up the points if these same people ended up being exactly like the “stuck up generation they despised, which is the vast majority of them). Guys who would put on eye-liner, make-up and crop-tops just to throw the f-slur at the nearest gay couple. Not LaBelle. LaBelle actually made the effort to build up a large queer audience, with a roster of queer, people of color in their audience. I’m not talking about the “high society gays” who wore suits, spoke soft and sweet, and tried to embody the “masc4masc” fantasy for themselves and straight people. I’m talking loud, brash, extravagant, proud, multi-faceted people. Drag queens, people in BDSM, Leather people, genderfluid people, trans people (not that the last two are “weird”) and more, the vast majority of whom were black and brown. Being three black women who spoke about the political and sexual things already far ahead for them, but the blatant acceptance of under-belly queer folk that made up a surprising number of New York was not only the pinnacle of humanity to me (Black Queer People are the most evolved human beings, I’ll take no arguments). However, something I also believe is that all this served as the reason they were never promoted as much, as these three albums were before Lady Marmalade. Even for the hippie era of the 70s, this is just something mainstream society would never accept or promote. Men can be androgynous, not women. Men could be as sexual as they desire, but women have three strikes. Women can talk about political stuff but we just won’t bump it. Black people can say certain things, but we’re still going to give them hate either way. Unfortunately, that was the era they lived in.
This era also produced one of my personal favorite songs by LaBelle, “(Can I Speak to You Before You Go to) Hollywood.” I am genuinely surprised that this song is not a staple in all theater programs in high schools throughout America. It’s a literal definition of a theatrical performance, with the trio having a sing-song conversation with each other about the delusional idea of trying to make it in Hollywood. Hendryx starts off with “Have you got a minute, my friend. Thought I’d drop in, say a word or two, to you.” Sarah Dash, Nona Hendryx, and Patti LaBelle each take turns in the song being the person questioning the other for their dream to go to Hollywood, critical but gentle. After the series of questions are asked throughout the song, hoping that the person knows what they’re doing and what they’re getting into, the trio comes together to say “Because I…I believe in you / Hope you do, all the things, you set out to do.” If you look at any live performance, you’d see that this is sung like a very miniature play. All the singers act out their roles, whether silent or speaking at the moment, in a beautiful way. As I said before, this needs to be integrated into a couple of music programs because nowhere else besides Nina Simone’s “4 Women” would you see black women have a performance piece that wasn’t just “singing.”
LaBelle was a one-of-a-kind group that pushed far beyond the expectations of a girl group and even a rock band. However, few people know about the accolades or private achievements that they had. To begin, Elton John was technically a musician for them at some point. Back when they were Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles, Elton John backed them on the piano. Or how about the fact that the Band “Kiss” saw the outfits that LaBelle was wearing and, inspired by the costumes, got in contact with their costume managers. The members of LaBelle actually had the same manager as The Who did at Warner Brothers which is why Patti LaBelle was the second person they contacted when Tina Turner couldn’t sing “The Acid Queen” live in the 80s. Stevie Wonder produced their second album along with Vicki Wingham, even penning the song “Open Up Your Heart” for them in 1973. After the group departed in 1976, Nona stayed in the rock world, continuing to build her brand to Afro-Futurerists, garnering a couple of small hits like “Why Should I Care,” “Transformation,” and the grammy-nominated “We Will Rock This House” co-written by Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones. Sarah Dash ventured into Disco and was the first to have a hit with the fast-paced “Sinner Man” that she famously recorded in one take; ironically, she ended up working with Keith Richards in his solo project “The Expensive Winos” as their main singer. Patti LaBelle of course became the Grammy-winning R&B singer that is a staple in many black people’s households and is honestly going through a resurgence through her pies. The beginning of this article began with their iconic performance as the first black group and contemporary vocal group to perform at The Metropolitan Opera House. Besides the sheer greatness that that moment meant for pop groups, black groups, and queer people, I included it because of the theme of that night “Wear Something Silver.” As we know, Beyonce has had The Renaissance Tour recently with the album heavily leaning into house music and R&B as well as openly being celebratory of queer people, especially her mother’s cousin, Uncle Johnny, who was a lover of fashion and House music. I can’t help but wonder, though, if Beyonce’s own “Wear Something Silver” was a reference to what LaBelle did 48 years ago. I could be wrong, or I could be right. Nevertheless, there is no denying that LaBelle was the greatest era that they were in, music sales be damned, and will forever be the face of Rock-N-Soul.