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Lost in Music, She’s the Greatest Dancer, Thinking of You and We’re Family – most artists aspire to just one song at a time in their career, but for Sister Sledge it all came down to one aspect of their music. As she brings this and the rest of the disco band’s still-inspiring music to the Electric Paradise festival this summer, Kathy Sledge joins us to answer your questions.
Kathy is one of the four Sledge sisters along with Debbie, Joni and Kim, who started the group as children in the mid-1960s, taking gigs at churches and events in their hometown of Philadelphia as the Sledge Sisters. After changing the name, they received a record deal and their first success came in the UK in 1973, with the Top 20 hit Mama Never Told Me.
Further commercial success eluded them for a few years – although this didn’t reflect the quality of early-stage products such as Pain Reliever – until their labels teamed up with Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards. Sister Sledge’s calmness and passion was evident from the songs the two wrote for them, which were collected on the We Are Family album. The song reached number 2 in the US and, along with the others, endures as the pinnacle of the disco era.
Remixes of the song followed in 1984 and 1993, each doing very well, particularly in the UK, although the band’s only UK No 1 was in 1985, with Frankie’s 60s single.
Kathy led their greatest hits, and after Sister Sledge retired in 1987, she had her own solo project reuniting with Sister Sledge, and later – amid legal disputes with her sisters – solo tours of Sister Sledge’s material. He will later perform at Electric Paradise in Milton Keynes, on 8 August, alongside other legends of the time such as Grace Jones, Candi Staton, Kool and the Gang and others.
Now 67, Kathy has toured nightclubs and recording studios around the world over the past decade, so there’s a lot to ask of her. Submit your questions in the comments below before 6pm GMT on Wednesday, and we’ll publish the answers within the week.
