Tag: Patti Labelle

100 Essential CDs – Number 10- Lady Love: Sweet Love Grooves

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Lady Love: Sweet Love Grooves (Laserlight 1993)

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I bought this German import CD in a set of three not long after it was released.  It was freely available in the UK and also seems to have been available separately if my research is right.  This is by far the strongest of the three which features tracks licensed from the Philadelphia International label.  The other two were also named after Philly hits “Let Em In” which was a hit for Billy Paul and “Let’s Clean Up The Ghetto”, a socially aware track by supergroup Philadelphia International All-Stars.  The other two tend to feature more uptempo tracks but here the emphasis is very much on the love ballad side of the label.  It features a mix of tracks from the glory days of the mid 70’s and a fair selection from the early 80’s when Philadelphia International were still putting out quality tracks by artists such as The Stylistics and Patti Labelle which were scoring big R&B hits but not crossing over to the pop charts.  The highest US chart placing for any of these is #24 for the title track and for the UK three places higher for a 1978 hit from the O’Jays.  None of the tracks managed both a UK and US Top 40 placing and there is no overlap from any of my other Essential  compilation CDs.  This does not in any way reflect the quality of these tracks many of which are Gamble and Huff compositions and productions.  Unfortunately, I’m not able to glean that much information from the sleevenotes as I don’t speak German but I think the info is all a little sparse anyway as might be expected on this kind of budget compilation. With these essential compilation CDs it is important to know what tracks can be found on them so here you will find them listed with their highest chart position (UK/US) if released as a single and links if I have more information on the artist elsewhere on the blog. I’ll pick out a handful of tracks to give a flavour of what makes these CDs essential.

Track Listings

1.Your Song- Billy Paul (1976) (UK#37)

2. Hurry Up This Way Again – Stylistics (1980)

3. I Just Love The Man – The Jones Girls (1983)

4. Turn Off The Lights – Teddy Pendergrass (1979)

5. The Sweetest Pain – Dexter Wansel (1979)

6. Love, Need And Want You – Patti Labelle (1983)

Three years before her big commercial breakthrough as a solo artist with  the essential  “The Winner In You” album Patti was signed to Philadelphia International and began working with Leon Gamble and Kenny Huff which seemed like it would pay huge commercial dividends.  Taken from the album “I’m In Love Again” it was a Top 10 single on the US R&B charts but despite becoming a bit of a “quiet storm” 80’s classic it did not make the pop charts on either side of the Atlantic.  It’s Patti at her vocal best, perhaps more understated and tender than she could be and this together with the other track included here, the more successful R&B chart-topper “If Only You Knew” and a sublime cover of the Dolly Parton song “Here You Come Again” represents the cream of her three albums for the label.  This particular track became very well known in the mid 90’s when it formed the central part of the worldwide chart-topper from Nelly, “Dilemma”, in which Kelly Rowlands sang the chorus and Patti was present in the part of Kelly’s mum in the video which gave Patti welcome exposure and would have hopefully had interested listeners seeking out the original version.

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7. Brandy – The O’Jays (1978) (UK#21)

8. Let Me Be Good To You – Lou Rawls (1978)

9. I Love You Anyway – Dee Dee Sharp Gamble (1983)

Dee Dee Sharp who also has a fabulous real name Dione LaRue began her music career when she was barely in her teens and by the age of 17 had notched up a sequence of four Top 10 US pop hits on the legendary Cameo-Parkway label .  Her biggest was “Mashed Potato Time” which like a number of her hits focused on and attempted to build on a dance craze.  She fits nicely into that Little Eva bracket and by the time Beatlemania of 1964 took hold her pop singles career chart like many artists of this ilk was finished.  Fast forward a couple of decades and Dee Dee, now married to label boss Kenny Gamble had reinvented herself as a sophisticated and convincing soul singer.  Signed to the Philadelphia International label for three albums which took her into the 1980’s.  (In 2010 Demon put out all three albums on a double CD set which demonstrates how under-rated this performer was in this second phase of her career).  This track which comes from the third of these albums “Dee Dee” is just beautiful and about a million miles away from the pop froth of her dance craze days.  A calm, sophisticated love song written by husband Kenny alongside label mate Dexter Wansel  (who has a track on his own on this album) and  Dexter’s  favoured lyricist Cynthia Biggs and produced and arranged by Wansel and Huff this is a real 1980’s Philadelphia highlight.

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10. Toast Of Love – The Three Degrees (1976)(UK#36)

11. Don’t Let It Go To Your Head- Jean Carn (1976)

12. The Best Love I Ever Had – Jerry Butler (1980)

13. Lady Love – Lou Rawls (1978) (US#24)

Jazz crooner Lou Rawls had been recording from the mid 50’s replacing Sam Cooke in an early group the Highway QCs.  In 1958 he was pronounced dead after a horrific car crash when touring with Cooke, but amazingly eventually recovered and like Sam he made the move from gospel to popular music, providing backing vocals on a number of Cooke’s big hits and recording albums which straddled Jazz, Pop and R&B genres.  Vocally we might consider Rawls a crooner who built a reputation through the quality of his life performances and label-hopped recording wise until he hooked up with Philadelphia International when he was in his early 40’s and scored big time with his amalgamation of the classic singer meets disco on “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine.”  Perhaps the biggest test to his credibility and relevance as a recording artist came with this track which lyrically borders on the cheesy but it’s done with such conviction that Rawls certainly gets away with it.  He also didn’t stick with this route as his output included socially conscious tracks and uptempo recordings which sounded more contemporary but here he kicks off the shoes and snuggles into a smooth love ballad which I loved almost as much as his signature hit back when I was a teenager and which still wins me over all these years later.  It’s always been a guilty pleasure, in the days when we used to take our own singles to parties I would sneak this one out of the record box and leave it home  in favour of the latest and much cooler Blondie or Donna Summer track but at home this was a regular on the hi-fi.

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14. The Whole Town’s Laughing At Me – Teddy Pendergrass (1977) (UK#44) 

When Teddy Pendergrass began his solo career in 1977 many people did not know who he was thinking that the distinctive voice on many Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes soul classics was Harold himself.  Just a few seconds into this outstanding single taken from his debut album was enough to put things right.  A masterful, self-effacing track which brings out the best of Teddy vocally on a really good song written by Sherman Marshall and Ted Wortham.  I really like Teddy in this understated  put- upon role, his very best track is also in this vein, the pleading “Can’t We Try” which incidentally appears on one of the companion CDs to this collection “Let Em In”.  Teddy’s image, however,  became more cemented as full of bravado and swagger, a love god, lampooned by Lenny Henry is his Theophilus P. Wildebeest character, which came from the more seduction based part of his repertoire from songs such as “Turn Off The Lights” but I far prefer him portraying a less confident role and this is certainly the case with this track.

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15. If Only You Knew – Patti Labelle (1984) (US#46)

16. Darlin’ Darlin’ Baby – O’Jays (1977) (UK#24)

Not the biggest O’Jays track on the album, that would be the too schmaltzy for me “Brandy” which recalls the queasiness of Bobby Goldsboro’s “Honey” too much for my liking but this despite lyrics such as “you should have everything/ a queen fit for the throne should have” is a great example of this group in their chugging mid-tempo mode.  A Gamble and Huff composition and production it is just a gentle love song.  O’ Jays tracks such as “I Love Music”, “Backstabbers”, “Message In Our Music” and “Love Train” made more of a statement but there was something about the tender honesty of this track which won us over particularly in the UK which made it their 4th out of 8 Top 40 hits.

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100 Essential CDs – Number 48 –Patti Labelle – Winner In You

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 Winner In You – Patti Labelle (MCA 1986) 

UK Chart Position – 30

US Chart Position – 1

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In March 1975 an extraordinary thing happened.  “Lady Marmalade” a tale of a New Orleans prostitute, a song which was blessed with at least three hooks topped the American pop charts.  The transformation of Patti Labelle and The Bluebelles to space-age funksters Labelle, with outlandish costumes and headgear was complete.  It marked their first appearance in the US Pop 40 for over ten years and gave them a UK#17.  The song is an all-time classic and turned them into very hot property overnight helped by their strong visual image and great live performances.  It seemed like Labelle would become a supergroup.  But………..with the unpredictability of the pop world, nothing much happened.  Subsequent singles and albums performed very well in R&B, Soul and Disco Charts but there was no more commercial crossover.  By 1976 the group was falling apart with arguments over musical direction and the stress of the flicker of fame getting to the girls and they went  their separate ways after 14 years together.  Solo success seemed inevitable for all three members, in particular rock-chick Nona Hendryx and the outrageously talented Patti Labelle.

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Labelle’s initially remained with Epic Records but they were unable to break her into the big time as a solo artist.  There was an astute move back to her home town of  Philadelphia and internationally celebrated label Philadelphia International (who had made stars of acts such as O’Jays, Three Degrees, Harold Melvin & Bluenotes and Billy Paul in the mid 70’s). It has also given another bite of the fame cherry to Lou Rawls, Jerry Butler and Dee Dee Sharp so it would seem to have been a sound move linking her with label supremos Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.  By 1981 they had lost a number of the acts they had broken big and Patti was expected to put dwindling fortunes right.    At her time in Philadelphia she made a number of what are now classic soul singles (especially “If Only You Knew” and “Love, Need And Want You”, which was used by Nelly in his number 1 hit “Dilemma” where the vocals were given to Kelly Rowland with Labelle appearing in the video).  She became a regular visitor at the top of R&B charts but still could not put her back in the pop listings.  Her Epic and Philadelphia albums have strong tracks but there are patchy moments suggesting that they still hadn’t found quite the right direction for Labelle.    Patti might have expected more of the same when she signed to MCA in 1985.  She must have seen a glimmer of hope as another old trouper had recently made a huge comeback at an age where most female artists were struggling for record label’s attention- Tina Turner had exploded with a force she never had with her years with Ike and the breakthrough of a new artist, one Whitney Houston suggested that first class vocals were back on the menu.

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Patti in latter years with Gamble & Huff

MCA’s first plan was to drop a couple of tracks onto the soundtrack of “Beverly Hills Cop”.  The rather brash, uptempo “New Attitude” and “Stir It Up” fitted in perfectly with the brash, uptempo Eddie Murphy movie and the first of these tracks saw Labelle in the pop charts after another 10 year absence when it reached number 17, the first time as a solo artist.

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And it is at this point in this lengthy career where this album was released.  Ten tracks using a range of top flight producers and songwriters such as Nik Ashford and Valerie Simpson, Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager and Richard Perry who had pretty much masterminded the return to top chart honours for The Pointer Sisters.  Patti was entrusted with the role of Executive Producer. MCA must surely have been quietly confident of their new signing despite erratic chart positions in the past.  Their faith paid off.  It became Labelle’s only charting UK album reaching number 30 but in her homeland she was back on top again.  Her biggest selling album by a clear mile.  It went platinum, has sold over 7 million albums worldwide, and extraordinarily for a 42 year old woman who had found pop success elusive topped the US album charts for two weeks.  Patti Labelle was back!

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The explanation for this reversal of fortune is down to the first track chosen as a single which reignited Labelle’s career.  A quality vocalist needs quality songwriters and they don’t get that much better than Burt Bacharach.  Together with his then wife Carole Bayer Sager they wrote a lament of coping after a lost love, “On My Own” which was given to Patti to record.  The decision was made that, despite a blistering performance from Labelle that the song could work even better as a duet.  Ex-Doobie Brothers singer and possessor of a great soul voice himself, Michael McDonald, took up the daunting challenge of singing with Patti.  This might have been one of the early occasions of phoning in a duet as the two did not meet in the studio.  Labelle’s vocal was recorded and McDonald added his to this.  They did not meet for the video, where, perhaps appropriately given the theme of the song, their contributions were filmed on their own.  They actually met the first time, according to Patti in her 1996 autobiography “Don’t Block The Blessings” when they turned up to perform it on Johnny Carson’s television show.  Despite all this suggesting this shouldn’t work, the chemistry between the two voices is terrific.  The split screen video is something of a kitsch classic with Patti drenched in furs and with super-high hair which became her identifying trademark around this time but the song is fantastic.  This is despite a friend who nearly ruined it all for me who would sing the song impersonating northern comedienne Hylda Baker (listen to the first line Patti sings – this is where this comes from as there is an undeniable hint of Baker in the delivery).  Hylda Baker passed away around about the time this was released so we were spared a reunion with Arthur Mullard to give this song a go, in the way in which they completely annihilated the songs from “Grease” for me with their hit version of “You’re The One That I Want- I still hear “When you’re filled with infection” as the song lyric).  However, once I get Hylda “I must get a little hand on this watch” Baker out of my mind this track is an absolute joy.  It gave Labelle her second US chart-topper and was held off for three weeks from the number 1 spot in the UK by (the wonders of the UK singles chart in the 1980’s!) “The Chicken Song” by Spitting Image, one of the worst novelty songs ever!  It also reached number 1 in the Netherlands and in Canada and number 4 in New Zealand and attained a high chart position in many other countries.  Neither artist would have this sort of success again.

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One of the problems Patti Labelle had been having with her crossover pop career is getting any consistency, yet this album provided her with a second hit on both sides of the Atlantic.  “Oh People” with its message of banding together to fight poverty and conflict over a mid-tempo beat might not have seemed the most obvious choice for a follow-up single, but it is surprisingly catchy and whilst I have been listening to this album for the purposes of this review it has been the track which has crept into my ear to keep me awake in the middle of the night.  It reached #26 in the UK, #29 in the US.  There were certainly more potential hit singles on this album as far as I am concerned.  Two other tracks are certainly first-class.  “Finally We’re Back Together” was produced by Nick Johnson (who co-wrote the song) and Budd Ellison which leads off with an impressive sax solo by David I (any relation to Kenny G?).  This track shows what makes Patti unique vocally as she swoops and soars over the simple melody.  “Sleep With Me Tonight” is an impressive power ballad and is another Bacharach and Bayer Sager production on a song written by them alongside Neil Diamond.  The title might have killed off airplay in 1986 but this sounds like another hit single to me.  It’s a good song with a performance of real honesty and warmth.

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Check out the hair!

There’s also quality in the driving “Something Special (Is Gonna Happen Tonight)” which sounds like the group Labelle at their best, the more subtle “Kiss Away The Pain”and the closing Ashford and Simpson title track which was apparently taken from a musical play “Pipes”.  It’s another dramatic track in which Patti wrings out every ounce of emotion, a powerful closer.

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More hair!

It was great to see Patti Labelle at the top of her game with this album, which ended 1986 as the fourth biggest selling album in the US that year.  Patti had certainly been waiting years for that level of fame to come.  The three year absence between this and 1989’s “Be Yourself” was too long in the fickle world of showbusiness and that limped to #86 in the US Album Charts.  Through the 1990’s she was recording gold and platinum albums for MCA but nothing with the commercial appeal of “Winner In You”.  An association with hip-hop Def-Jam Records under their Def Soul Classics umbrella did bring about a comeback with two good selling albums, “Timeless Journey” (#18- 2004) and an album of covers of her favourite songs “Classic Moments” (#24-2005).  This latter CD is, for me, the most essential of her post-Winner recordings.

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Patti also has recorded a number of Christmas albums and had a chart-topping Gospel album with a return to her roots with “The Gospel According To Patti Labelle”.  At 72 she is still going strong, combining live performance work with Broadway and regular US TV appearances.  In the UK we last saw her in “American Horror Story: Freak Show” and in “Empire”, both too brief appearances.  In 2015 she participated in America’s version of “Strictly”- Dancing With The Stars in 2015 partnered by ex-Strictly Champion Artem Chigvintsev leaving the show in 8th place.  This CD for me remains the crowning glory moment of her illustrious career.

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 Patti On “Dancing With The Stars”

The Winner In You is currently available from Amazon in the UK for £16.27, and used from £1.24. In the US it is currently $17.97 new and used from $0.01. and as a download for $5.99.

100 Essential CDs – Number 46 –Patti Labelle & The Bluebelles – Over The Rainbow

On By philshanklinIn 100 Essential, Music, Uncategorized4 Comments

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Over The Rainbow – Patti Labelle & The Bluebelles (Spy 2002)

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There are four distinct phases in the recording career of this legendary R&B girl group.  The first phase was their earliest recordings which appeared on labels such as Newtown and Parkway, singles releases backed up by a growing reputation as a blistering live act.  There were two Top 40 US pop singles during this time “Down The Aisle”(#37 in 1963) and a drama laden version of the standard from the musical “Carousel”, “You’ll Never Walk Alone” (#34 in 1964).  In fact there was an earlier, even bigger hit credited to the group, the Bluebelles when the marvellously titled “I Sold My Heart To The Junkman” reached #15 in 1962.  In true exploitative 60’s girl-group fashion this was reputedly recorded by a group called The Starlets, who also recorded for the Newtown label.  The Bluebelles added this song to their repertoire and actually re-recorded it, but apparently it was not them on the hit single, whatever it said on the label.

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The second phase is launched by this particular CD when the quartet of Patricia Holt (later Patti Labelle), Cindy Birdsong, Nona Hendryx and Sarah Dash signed to Atlantic amongst a very strong feeling that this label would be a perfect match for the group and would lead to great commercial success.  It didn’t.  Despite some great recordings of which this is a representation the hits didn’t come and the ascendancy of the Motown girl groups made the group fade into the background- recording wise, but certainly not in live performances where Patti and the girls could still blow most other groups off the stage.  In fact, to add salt to the wounds the group lost Cindy Birdsong when she hurried off to  become a Supreme when original member Florence Ballard was sacked.  This was something which was always seen as unforgiveable theft by Patti Labelle.

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The unrealised potential had to wait for the third phase when Dusty Springfield’s manager Vicki Wickham took control and re-imagined the group as a space-age, futuristic funk/rock group with theatrical tin-foil influenced costumes and feathers and furs and the group became Labelle, scoring a worldwide hit and all-time classic early on with “Lady Marmalade” (US#1, UK#17 1975).  It looked like Labelle were going to become superstars with their strong image and even stronger vocals but continued commercial success eluded them and they were never as big as they should have been.  Solo careers eventually beckoned .  The fourth stage was when Patti, Nona and Sarah reunited for 2008’s worthwhile “Back To Now” album.  This contained their greatest ever recording as a bonus track.  Originally recorded in London in 1970 and produced by Kit Lambert some years before their “Nightbirds” reincarnation their version of  Cole Porter’s “Miss Otis Regrets” is perhaps one of the greatest soul tracks recorded in the UK.

Labelle in 1975 and 2008

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But we rewind back five years to 1965 and this debut Atlantic album, full of promise and potential hits.  Detractors say it was clear from this point that Atlantic did not really know what to do with them.  The tracks that had attracted most attention in their pre-Atlantic days were cover versions of standards  such as the aforementioned “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and the schmaltzy “Danny Boy”.  In Labelle’s hands these songs were “Patti-fied” to turn them into big, dramatic sounds dominated by the extraordinary Labelle voice.  Although the songs chosen for “Over The Rainbow” would have felt slightly more relevant to the contemporary audience cover versions dominated.

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This was fairly standard practice in the mid 60’s, to put a couple of originals which would be the tracks chosen as singles amongst cover versions.  Atlantic was certainly doing this around the same time with another of their signings, the greatly talented Esther Phillips.  Although neither Phillips nor Labelle got the commercial acclaim due to them at the time the classic nature of these songs means that we can still value them as great song stylists and the tracks have lasted longer than the original songs produced for them.  After a couple of years of trying to break both Labelle and Phillips into the pop charts Atlantic legendary producer and executive , Jerry Wexler decided to approach a different tactic with his later signing, Aretha Franklin.  She had been on Columbia records where the same approach was being used as she was recording tracks such as “Rock A Bye Your Baby (With A Dixie Melody)” and “Ac-Cent-tchu-ate The Positive”.  By the time Wexler began recording with Franklin the mood of America had changed and these recordings began to embrace this and the civil rights movement with classic effect.  I may be in the minority here but I actually prefer Patti Labelle’s voice to Aretha Franklin’s.

The twelve tracks that make up this album were produced by experienced Atlantic producer Bert Berns and the album first saw the light of day in 1966.  An attempt to crack the singles charts had been made with “All Or Nothing” an original song co-written by Pam Sawyer, born in Romford, Essex,  who as a Motown staffer would go on to write such classic songs as “Love Child” for The Supremes and “Love Hangover” for Diana Ross.  Wexler had high hopes for this track which is a good commercial girl group sound made that little bit more special by Patti’s vocal performance but it did not chart.  It did make it onto the album.  The second single was another original, but probably most people hearing this today would put it down as a cover.  Carole Bayer Sager alongside Toni Wine wrote “Groovy Kind Of Love” which is a strong, melodic, playful track which has hit written all over it.  It wasn’t.  With the British Invasion of UK music stars dominating charts the world over it was covered by Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders who took it to number 2 in the UK in early 1966 and was the number 2 US follow-up to their American chart-topper “Game Of Love”.  Phil Collins, of course, went one place better on both sides of the Atlantic some 22 years later, but make no mistake, the original and best version is by Patti Labelle & The Bluebelles.

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This 2002 issue of the 1966 album kicks off with a song which has been associated with the act through all of its incarnations.  “Over The Rainbow” was always a staple of live shows and here in this early version Patti is dragging every ounce of emotion from it, ably backed by the other three.  As a solo artist it became compulsory for Labelle to finish shows with it and it was a track she re-recorded.  Her best version is from a live performance.  I found it on the soundtrack of the film “Too Wong Foo” and it is an absolute showstopper.  I remember seeing Patti doing this as an encore for a concert on TV and it was one of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever seen as the vocals soared, she rolled around on the floor and produced one of the ultimate musically dramatic performances.  Another great version of this song was performed on X Factor in 2005 by eventual winner Shayne Ward, whose arrangement is certainly inspired by Patti’s.  This 1965 version is a great opener to the album.

Other tracks which are Patti-fied here include “Ebb Tide”, “More” (I think the best version of this song is by Martha Reeves & Vandellas), the Beatles’ “Yesterday” and the Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse show-tune “Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)”.  Patti-fying a song means upping the drama level and wringing every ounce of emotion from it, there’s an almost drenching of gospel but the song doesn’t lose its original meaning.  The phrasing is unique as Patti bends and soars with the lyrics in a way which is totally unpredictable.  Every time I listen I’m amazed as to where Patti decides to pitch or hold a note, you think she’s going to do something and she does something else entirely which is probably more extraordinary and technically difficult than what you had imagined.  A track like “People” is evidence of this.  The song would be well known for introducing another technically gifted singer, Barbra Streisand, so could be considered a brave move.  This seems almost like a challenge Patti relishes, she holds notes where Barbra breathes and seems so accomplished with her version.  At the time of this release Patti was 21 years old and yet seems like a vocal veteran.  Her influence on other performers cannot be understated.  In fact, around this time the Patti Labelle and the Bluebelles Fan Club was set up by a superfan who was so enamoured of what Patti could do.  This young lad was called Luther Vandross, who was certainly no slouch in the vocal department and no doubt learned a lot by listening to Patti.

Another original track “Patti’s Prayer” confirms the gospel expertise of this group as does a version of the song “He” which has been a mid 50’s hit for Al Hibbler.  Another track associated with Hibbler is “Unchained Melody” and the group give this a good go too.  This isn’t one of the stand-out tracks.  At the start Patti sounds quite far back in the mix, rather than steaming out of the blocks from her first note, which makes it seem a little understated compared to some of the other tracks available here.  We round things off with a lovely version of “Try To Remember”.

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The girls as postage stamps

So, commercially unsuccessful but a real treat and the one Labelle the group CD I listen to the most often and it was a great move for Spy records to lease the original master recording as part of their Ambassador Soul Classics releases from Atlantic who would have probably left it languishing in a vault.  Anyone keen on the girl group sound, on blistering versions of familiar songs or on the powerhouse vocal of Patti Labelle should certainly seek this out.  For me, it’s an Essential CD.

Over The Rainbow is currently available from Amazon in the UK for £6.95, and used from £3.30 and as a download for £5.95.  An album which features these tracks alongside those from the follow-up album was released in 2014 and would be a worthwhile, if considerably more expensive choice. In the US it is currently $13.74 new $4.98 used and downloadable for $8.99.