Song:We Are Family
Album:The Best Of Sister Sledge (1973-1985)
The 1979 single We Are Family was the biggest hit for Sister Sledge. They had one other top ten pop hit and then they faded. These real life sisters are from Philadelphia. Debbie, Joni, Kim and Kathy are the daughters of Broadway tap dancer Edwin Sledge and actress Florez Sledge. Their grandmother was opera singer Viola Williams and she taught them to sing in church. They started performing together as teens with mom as manager and tour bus driver. They signed with the local label Money Back. After the 1973 single Mama Never Told Me was a hit in England and the 1974 single Love Don't Go Through No Changes On Me was a hit in Japan, Sister Sledge signed with Atlantic's Atco label. After their first couple of albums were unsuccessful, Atlantic assigned them to producers Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic. They wrote and produced all the songs on the 1979 album We Are Family. The first single He's The Greatest Dancer reached #9 on the Billboard Hot 100. The single We Are Family was an even bigger hit. It reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song transcended the charts because 1979 World Series champs the Pittsburgh Pirates made it their theme song. Kathy Sledge was lead singer on We Are Family. The album was certified Platinum. Subsequent albums didn't do as well. For the 1981 album All American Girls, they switched to producer Narada Michael Walden. Their final album for Atlantic was in 1985. This comp covers the Atlantic years but it also contains a couple of pre-Atlantic singles. Since then Sister Sledge hasn't recorded much but they continue to tour even after Joni Sledge died in 2017. Here's the video for We Are Family by Sister Sledge.
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