Warner Bros / Wea
1997
Something Silver
About This Album
With 1974's "Lady Marmalade," LaBelle placed itself in a spotlight that would last until Patti LaBelle left the group for a solo career some two years later. A darling of New York's Apollo Theater, the group never compromised, delivering its fiery, passionate R&B exactly as its members wanted to. Leaving behind the cookie-cutter big hair and lookalike dresses of its Blue Belles era, LaBelle took the stage after dropping out of sight to reinvent itself, and emerged as a group of glamorously modern individuals -- three strong styles that melded into a universal whole of staggering proportion. This compilation rounds up the group's best songs and includes many of its covers, alongside original material. The members of LaBelle were masters of interpretation, blessed with the uncanny ability to completely co-opt a song -- to turn it into something of their own without disturbing the integrity of the original and, in most cases, elevate it to heights previously unimagined. Through the use of classic R&B, funk, and dance beats that foreshadowed the disco movement, LaBelle turned its audience's attention to something vitally fresh and unique. This collection opens with LaBelle's reinvention of Gil Scott-Heron's Black Power manifesto "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," which bleeds out of a revolutionarily balladic version of Thunderclap Newman's "Something in the Air.
Track List (try tracks 3,4,14 and 15)

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