Sister Sledge singer Joni found dead in her home
NEW YORK— Joni Sledge, who with her sisters recorded the enduring dance anthem “We Are Family,” has died, the band’s representative said Saturday. She was 60.
Sledge was found dead in her home by a friend in Phoenix, Ariz., on Friday, the band’s publicist, Biff Warren, said. A cause of death has not been determined. He said she had not been ill.
“Yesterday, numbness fell upon our family. We welcome your prayers as we weep the loss of our sister, mother, aunt, niece and cousin,” a family statement read.
Sledge and her sisters Debbie, Kim and Kathy formed Sister Sledge in 1971 in Philadelphia, their hometown, but struggled for years before success came.
“The four of us had been in the music business for eight years and we were frustrated. We were saying: ‘Well, maybe we should go to college and just become lawyers or something other than music because it really is tough,’ ” Joni told the Guardian in an interview last year.
But then they met Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers of the hit group Chic, and their breakout soon came. The pair wrote and produced their album We Are Family, and soon the women had their first major hit with disco jam “The Greatest Dancer.”
But their biggest hit would come a month later with the title track, an infectious dance anthem that celebrated their familial connection with the refrain, “We are family, I got all my sisters with me.” While it celebrated their sisterhood, the 1979 hit also became an anthem for female empowerment and unity. It would become their signature hit, and was nominated for a Grammy.
Joni Sledge is survived by an adult son, her sisters and other relatives.