Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Leftovers: Family: Sister Sledge



purchase [ the song ]

So... I get the first  slot: a mix of Family and Leftovers.

Since the <family> theme is officially over and I never got this finished, I guess it qualifies as a leftover.

When I began writing this, I wondered why so many of the songs I initially scoped out for <family> are disco pieces or from the disco era. Maybe you have an answer?

There's Sly and the Family Stone and Mary J. Blige with "Family Affair" [ granted they are not the same song, but the name's the same]. Then, there's Sister Sledge, which I decided to zoom in on because ... it's family.

Sister Sledge were really all sisters with the family name Sledge. Four of them from Philly, PA. They are still touring - minus Joni, who died  back in 2017.

Singing backup on We Are Family is a [then] little known Luther Vandross (unlikely that you can make him out). Various other related tidbits: this was the Pittsburgh Pirates theme song in 1979 - the year they came back from 1-3 down to win the World Series; Joe Lieberman used the song as his campaign theme in 2003; the song essentials were used in "We are Pepsi Free"; The song made #1 on the R&B list back then and #3 in the album lists. The sisters have performed with or been on stage with Aretha, Al Jarreau, Pope Francis and a couple others.

There's absolutely nothing great about the lyrics - except that it fits a family of sisters:

We are family
I got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up everybody and sing