‘Some dange just ha E clubs were rous...and we ad to get out’
THEY WERE THE glamorous faces of late 70s disco, dressed to impress in flashy stage gear – all bell-bottoms and bare midriffs – with iconic songs like We Are Family and Lost In Music. Chic chicks with slick hits – in the parlance of the time. But Sister Sledge faced ugly obstacles on their route to fame. Debbie Sledge, the eldest of the four Philadelphia-born sisters, recalls early gigs in dangerous clubs, being fleeced by unscrupulous promoters and having to face shocking bigotry while still children.
“We were too young to be in the clubs we were in when we started, so we had to head straight for whatever they had for a dressing room,” Debbie, 70 next month, recalls.
“Some of the clubs were dangerous. We had to go into public restrooms and see crazy things” – including carnal frolicking.
“I’d see the evidence of hard drugs,” she says.
“Not all the men in the industry were gentlemen.
“My mum kept us far away from them. She had a hard job. She had to get us there, make sure the band showed up and deal with tough promoters.”
On some occasions these shysters would vanish without paying, or try to dock their fee on spurious grounds.
“Next time, she made them pay up front. These guys were very rough.
“Sometimes it was too dangerous and we just had to get out of there.”
Moving to a new home in West Philadelphia in the late 60s proved even riskier. Debbie’s youngest sister Kathy, who was eight at the time, has spoken about the hatred they encountered, from brutal bigotry to cross-burnings.
The girls had police protection inside their schools.
“It was a Ku Klux Klan neighbourhood,” Debbie says softly. “We didn’t know. We were used to being asked things like, ‘Are you the Supremes?’ But then we ran into really dangerous racists.”
The experience bound them tighter. “We found what we needed in each other,” says Debbie who, like her sisters, drew strength from religion. “Mum taught us to treat people how you want to be treated. I’m a believer in Jesus Christ.”
Faith is one of
the foundation stones of Sister Sledge, along with family, music and showbusiness.
Father Edwin, a Baptist minister, was a ground-breaking Broadway tap-dancer. Mum Florez (aka Flo) was an actress and their grandmother Viola Williams was a classical opera singer who trained them to sing.
They performed at Methodist church and charity events when they were all under ten, billed simply as “Mrs Williams’ grandchildren”.
“It was a small church with a big sound,” smiles Debbie. Their older half-sister Carol turned the siblings into R&B backing vocalists.
“The first time we got paid to perform was for a party and we put together a band just for that. We rehearsed in our basement and auditioned there.
“Carol was dating the drummer of the Stylistics so we went to their rehearsals too.
“We heard all kinds of music growing up – a lot of Motown – my aunts and uncles always had Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye playing, and my mum loved jazz singers like Nancy Wilson and Nina Simone.”
The fledgling girl group didn’t have a name until an MC asked for one. Sister Kim shrugged and said “Sledge Sisters”.
Then, at a New Jersey club, an MC who’d had one too many bourbons mangled his words and introduced them as Sister Sledge. It sounded cool so they stuck with it.
Their parents had split by then and mum Flo was working three jobs to make ends meet.
One of her bosses was so concerned they gave her a convertible Impala which became their tour bus.
The sisters released their first single Time Will Tell on a local label in 1971, but had their first hit in Japan in 73 and went Top 20 here with the funky Philly soul single Mama Never Told Me in 1975. That would be five years before their first US Top Ten.
Early career highs included performing before the historic Rumble In The Jungle boxing bout, when Muhammad Ali fought George Foreman in Zaire, Africa, in 1974.
When the power cut out in front of 80,000 spectators the sisters immediately sang an acapella version of Spirit In The Dark by Aretha Franklin with an African-style dance until the power came back.
The sisters had flown over with soul godfather James Brown, and as Zaire was French-speaking, her sister Joni taught Brown to say “I am home” in French – “Je suis chez moi” – which went down like George did in round eight. “Zaire was phenomenal,” says Debbie. “Our first time in Africa. I felt a connection.”
Sister Sledge’s backstory inspired Chic co-founders Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards to write and produce their biggest hit, 1979’s platinum-selling We Are Family.
The song became an enduring anthem of female empowerment and the album of the same name sold more than a million copies.
The alliance spawned other hits, notably Lost In Music and He’s The Greatest Dancer.
The Grammy-winning group topped the UK charts with Frankie in 1985 after going Top 5 with Rodgers’s remix of Lost In Music. The B-side, Thinking Of You also charted high.
The sisters have sold more than 20 million physical records worldwide and invested the royalties wisely – in homes, weddings and education. All four had graduated from Philly’s Temple university by the end of the
70s. However, they did attract a few worrying fans, including a stalker who hid in hotel laundry bins to get close to them.
“I was on maternity leave, so I missed all of that,” says Debbie.
“I was pregnant in the studio when we were recording the We Are Family album – then they went on tour and I had the baby.
“They had a gigantic tour with the Jackson Five and they had bodyguards then. Some of them took their job so seriously, even a person who wasn’t a stalker would’ve been in trouble.”
DEBBIE laughs and adds: “We didn’t have a whole lot of hassle with men – we travelled as a family and we had rules, like don’t go anywhere without a buddy.
“The only trouble was the curiosity of my sisters. As they got older, they wanted to go out and see the town after the show and that wasn’t always smart. I’d have to go out with them and chaperone. I remember going out after a show in Scotland and there was nothing there – just one club. As we arrived a fight was coming out of the door. That scared them back to the hotel.” Twice-married
Debbie, who now lives in Arizona, is the only original member currently performing in Sister Sledge. She’s joined by two of her six children, Camille and David, her nephew Thaddeus – Joni’s son – and singer Tanya Ti-et, collectively known as Sledgendary.
Kathy was the first to leave for a solo career in 1989, Joni tragically died aged 60 in 2017 and Kim left in 2020.
“Losing Joni was a shock to all of us,” says Debbie. “She had so much life.”
Debbie relaxes by “sitting down with a good book – the good book, I’m reading Prophets right now,” and spending time with her grandchildren, some of whom live in Holland.
“My grandkids make me laugh, I’d never felt this kind of love before. I have 14, the youngest one is turning four. They’re good kids. We’re trying to all get together at Christmas.”
Debbie’s highs include singing with Whitney Houston, Sister Sledge performing for Pope Francis in 2015, and her 2014 jazz set at New York’s celebrated Cotton Club.
“Coming to England is always fun,” she adds. “We’ve been coming for so long it feels like we have family here. We bring joy. That’s what we do. And we’ll bring it again.”
Sister Sledge perform at Blenheim Palace on Thursday June 13 alongside Chaka Khan and Fatback Band as part of this year’s Nocturne Live concert series. Visit nocturnelive.com
‘‘ The trouble was the curiosity of my sisters. They wanted to go out and see the town after a show and that wasn’t always smart. So I’d have to go out and chaperone. I remember after one show in Scotland there was nothing there...just one club with a fight coming out the door. That scared them back to the hotel.