FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
Sister Sledge - We Are Family
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ONE of the Disco classics from the 1970s…
IN THIS PHOTO: Sister Sledge in the 1980s/PHOTO CREDIT: Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redfern
I wanted to put Sister Sledge’s We Are Family in Vinyl Corner. You can find vinyl copies - though I wonder whether there will be a reissue, as most of the copies are second-hand. If you can find a good copy, this is an album that sounds fantastic on the format! We Are Family is the third studio album by Sister Sledge, released on 22nd January, 1979 in the U.S. Written and produced by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, there are four huge hit singles: We Are Family, He's the Greatest Dancer, Lost in Music and Thinking of You. Those are such timeless songs. It is amazing to think how much gold there is on the album! If you love R&B and Disco of the ‘70s and are familiar with Sister Sledge, We Are Family is a perfect album to get. The collaboration between Chic (Rodgers and Edwards were members of the band) and Sister Sledge is interesting. Sister Sledge signed to Atlantic in 1973. The label’s boss, Jerry L. Greenberg, told Rodgers and Edwards about the band. They (Rodgers and Edwards) had never met. The content and brilliance all stemmed from that meeting. That is quite an achievement! Although there are only eight tracks on We Are Family, the songs are given time to expand and work their magic. The title track is over eight minutes, whilst He’s the Greatest Dancer is over six minutes. This is an album designed for dancefloors, where one could work up a proper sweat!
If you need more convincing as to why you need to own We Are Family on vinyl, there are a couple of reviews that provide a lot of praise and positivity. This is what AllMusic wrote when they sat down with the album:
“Before 1979's We Are Family, Sister Sledge wasn't a huge name in the R&B/disco world. The group had enjoyed a small following and scored a few minor hits, including "Love, Don't You Go Through No Changes on Me" in 1974 and "Blockbuster Boy" in 1977. But it wasn't until We Are Family that the Philadelphia siblings finally exploded commercially, and the people they have to thank for their commercial success are Chic leaders Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards. The Rodgers/Edwards team handles all of the writing, producing, and arranging on this album; so not surprisingly, almost everything on We Are Family is very Chic-sounding. That is true of the sexy "He's the Greatest Dancer" and the anthemic, uplifting title song (both of which soared to #1 on the R&B charts), as well as excellent album tracks like the lush "Easier to Love," the perky "One More Time," and the addictive "Thinking of You." The least Chic-sounding tune on the album is the ballad "Somebody Loves Me," which favors a classic sweet soul approach and is the type of song one would have expected from Thom Bell, Gamble & Huff, or Holland-Dozier-Holland rather than Rodgers/Edwards. Meanwhile, the intoxicating "Lost in Music" (a #35 R&B hit) is about as Chic-sounding as it gets. When Rhino reissued We Are Family on CD in 1995, it added four bonus tracks, all of which are remixes of either the title song or "Lost in Music." These remixes are intriguing; it's interesting to hear late '70s classics turned into high-tech 1990s dance-pop. But they are less than essential, and the original versions are by far the best -- how can you improve on perfection? Both creatively and commercially, We Are Family is Sister Sledge's crowning achievement”.
One does not need to have been alive in 1979 to understand We Are Family. The songs are so fresh and infectious that any person can pick up the album and enjoy what they heard. The BBC reviewed the album in 2010 and observed the following:
“Sister Sledge's We Are Family came at the summit of an amazing non-stop burst of creativity from Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, aka The Chic Organization Ltd, in 1978.
Recorded simultaneously with Chic's own C'est Chic album, We Are Family was written and produced by Rodgers and Edwards, who had recently scored big with Everybody Dance and Dance, Dance, Dance. They were offered the cream of Atlantic’s roster to work with. Icons such as The Rolling Stones and Aretha Franklin were rejected in favour of Philadelphia quartet Sister Sledge. By taking this relatively blank canvas, who’d already released a duo of underperforming albums, expectations were low.
Disco myth suggests that Sister Sledge’s records prior to this were simply not very good, but both had some great moments. If you listen to Funky Family from 1977’s Together, you hear the template for We Are Family. However, it sounds like a cola commercial as opposed to the gargantuan groove produced by Rodgers and Edwards.
Rodgers observed the four Sledge girls huddling together in the studio. Inspired, he penned the album’s title-track, one of their greatest hits, a song of sisterly love that brought a sense of family and joy to the late 70s ‘me’ generation. He’s the Greatest Dancer catalogued the suburban dreams of local Travoltas everywhere, and Rodgers’ eloquence (“he looks like a still, that man is dressed to kill”) is married with the wide-eyed wonderment of lead vocalist Kathy Sledge.
Lost In Music – the code phrase that Rodgers and Edwards used when they didn’t want to be disturbed – evokes the rapture of being caught up in a song (and has the distinction of having a marvellous cover version of it by The Fall). And then, there’s Thinking of You, one of the best songs to capture the glory of love. Sweet and subtle, it never outstays its welcome.
With these four classics and a four similarly strong others, We Are Family still sounds alive, zesty and vibrant. It was especially taken to heart in the UK, and awarded Sister Sledge the disco diva status that they so rightly deserved. It remains the album on which their reputation rests”.
I am going to round up. Recorded at The Power Station, New York in 1978, there are few albums that define the Disco era as memorably than We Are Family. With Nile Rodgers on guitar and Bernard Edwards on bass, it is a close-knit album. The vocals from Kathy, Debbie, Joni and Kim Sledge are reliably amazing and full of soul and power! Go and seek out We Are Family, as it is such an uplifting record. If you require a tonic to banish the blues, then Sister Sledge’s We Are Family…
WILL do that.