The song gave us the privilege of being vessels to channel the joy we were experiencing to others,” Debbie explains. “And, as it turned out, that very same joy we were hoping to share was being fed back to us by our audiences.”
But a real crossroads for the group was when they learned the complex harmonies they became noted for. “We could sing these four-part harmonies and that made a big difference.”
Their move westward occurred somewhat piecemeal. Debbie relocated to Phoenix in the late ’80s, when her then-husband got a job teaching at Arizona State University. She loved the area so much, she encouraged her sister Joni and their mother to move to the Valley. “It’s our home base,” Sledge says resolutely.
When they arrived in the Valley, the sisters were already internationally acclaimed musical stars, with a considerable catalog of hits to their credit and a growing audience of international fans. As Sledge describes it, “The band got its start in 1971, and we signed our first recording contract in 1974. That really was the beginning of our professional career, and it just seemed to take off from there.”
After a few early hits, Sister Sledge achieved true legendary status in 1979, when their chart-busting hit “We Are Family” first hit the airwaves. Penned by premier songwriters Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, the now iconic, “feel-good” tune went on to capture a 1979 Grammy nomination and chart successfully around the globe in more than a dozen international countries.
“It was a major turning point in our lives; it changed our lives drastically,” Sledge says of the song. “It didn’t change us so much in the sense of who we were as people, but, rather, it changed our outlook on what was possible for us. We were asking ourselves, ‘Wow! What’s going on here? Why are we the focus of all these blessings?’ ”
More than anything, “We Are Family” helped brand Sister Sledge, defining the precise direction their music would take thereafter, and stamping the sisters’ act with the very message of solidarity they’d been seeking to share with their audiences.
“It was a major turning point in our lives; it changed our lives drastically,” Sledge says of the song. “It didn’t change us so much in the sense of who we were as people, but, rather, it changed our outlook on what was possible for us. We were asking ourselves, ‘Wow! What’s going on here? Why are we the focus of all these blessings?’
The song gave us the privilege of being vessels to channel the joy we were experiencing to others,” Debbie explains. “And, as it turned out, that very same joy we were hoping to share was being fed back to us by our audiences.”
