To this day, it is one of the most recognizable songs in the Disco Era. It's even become a sports anthem and helped to spur a baseball team on to a World Series championship the year of its release.
But it actually took some cajoling by the men who wrote the song, Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of the group Chic, to get "We Are Family" released as the second single for the act they were working with, Sister Sledge.
The sisters -- Kathy, Joni, Debbie and Kim -- first put together their act in 1971 as teenagers in their hometown of Philadelphia. Their debut album, 1975's "Circle Of Love," made the Top 60 on the R&B album chart, but failed to make the Top 200 pop album chart. And so Atco Records eventually let the sisters go and in 1977, they were signed to Cotillion Records, a New York City-based label and a subsidiary to Atlantic Records.
This was actually the big time for the sisters. In 1977, they released "Together," their second album, but this album failed to chart altogether, not making either the R&B or pop album charts. The sisters were in a rut -- they could sound great on an album, but when no one is paying attention to your records, why bother?
The three oldest sisters, meanwhile, turned to getting their college degrees. Their careers were at a crossroads by 1978 and they were going to need something to fall back on if whatever their third album was going to become failed once again. They could see the writing on the wall as well as the people who pushed them to be stars.
At about that time, the two leaders of a new disco band called Chic showed interest toward Sister Sledge. Rodgers, the band's guitarist, and Edwards, the group's bass player, had heard the group's 1977 failed album and thought maybe a change in a different direction might get people interested in them.
So the pair worked with their Atlantic Records mates to record an album that would turn heads the sisters' ways. When the pair showed interest toward the sisters, it was Atlantic Records president Jerry Greenberg who gave Rodgers and Edwards a review of who they were going to work with. He showed them with high praise of what they do musically and everything they did, they did as a "family."
And so the pair worked on two things. First, they wanted the sisters to blend more together on the songs they were doing. Gone were a lot of the solos of the recent album and in were songs that all four could sing together on, though there'd still be a main lead singer, which in this case was the baby of the family, 19-year-old Kathy.
The other thing they worked on: A track that would be the basis of who they were, simply on the one conversation the Chic pair had with the record label president.
When it was time to record the song, though, the sisters had no working song lyrics. All they knew was they were to sing together the chorus when directed by them:
"We are fa-mi-ly. I've got all my sisters with me. We are fa-mi-ly. Get up everybody and sing."
Now as for the chorus, Edwards and Rodgers were literally working on the fly as they were recording the song. As a matter of fact, the story goes that while the sisters were recording "We Are Family," it was Rodgers who supplied the lyrics to Kathy for her to sing over the music. Somehow -- maybe miraculously -- Kathy Sledge nailed the vocal in one take and with the sisters singing their heart out alongside an enthusiastic young man wanting to get his career off the ground doing backing vocals named Luther Vandross, both Rodgers and Edwards figured, "A-ha! We have the breakthrough single this group is looking for!"
But when it came time to push for the release of "We Are The Family" as the first single from the album of the same name, it was Greenberg -- the man who painted a glowing picture of the sisters to the duo -- who rejected the idea. Instead, Greenberg went a different route in the winter of 1979. He selected another track from the album with a very infectious disco tone to it as the first single.
Greenberg apparently knew what he was doing because "He's The Greatest Dancer" got the girls into the Top 40 on the pop chart for the first time and got them as high as No. 9. More impressively, it not only became Sister Sledge's first Top 40 R&B hit, it went to No. 1.
With Sister Sledge out there for the whole world to see, Greenberg decided to pull the trigger on the album's title cut next. And so in mid-April 1979, "We Are Family" was released and on the week of May 12, 1979, "We Are Family" made its Top 40 debut as the highest debut of the week at No. 27. One week later, it leaped to No. 13 and the week after that, jumped to No. 6. Looked like it was bound for No. 1.
The next week, it moved up to places to No. 4, then No. 3 on June 9, 1979. The next week, it got to No. 2. No. 1 seemed within reach. But the sisters could not take down Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff" from the top spot. That song was entrenched at No. 1 for three non-consecutive weeks and after seven weeks in the Top 40, the song dropped to No. 4 on June 30, but not without being part of a Hot 100/Top 40 first as being part of the first-ever Top 5 featuring all women (Anita Ward's "Ring My Bell" at No. 1, "Hot Stuff" and Summer's "Bad Girls" at Nos. 2 and 3, respectively, "We Are Family" at No. 4 and Rickie Lee Jones' "Chuck E's In Love" at No. 5).
The first outside project from Chic featuring Rodgers and Edwards was a smashing success and they'd go on to do more projects over the years with other artists such as Diana Ross, David Bowie and Duran Duran. And the story of "We Are Family" may have ended quietly as that song that nearly hit No. 1.
But during the 1979 baseball season, the Pittsburgh Pirates, led by future Hall of Famer Willie "Pops" Stargell, the National League's co-Most Valuable Player, was bringing "We Are Family" as the team's theme song. And pretty soon, the public address system at Three Rivers Stadium began playing "We Are Family" regularly during games. And in Game 3 of the 1979 National League Championship Series, the wives and girlfriends of the Pirates players jumped up on the roof of the Pirates' dugout at Three Rivers Stadium and they began dancing to "We Are Family" as it was being played. Mere innings later, the Pirates had finished off a sweep of the Cincinnati Reds an were on to the World Series to face the team with the best record in baseball that year, the Baltimore Orioles.
"We Are Family" became the rallying cry by Stargell and the Pirates when they fell behind 3-1 in the best-of-7 World Series. But they won Game 5, then won Games 6 and 7 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore to win the World Series for the first time since 1971.
The song has been a sports anthem for years and has been in movies such as Private Benjamin, Madea's Family Reunion, The Bird Cage, The Full Monty and Mission Impossible: III. It was also played during the Democratic National Convention in New York in 2004.
While the song took on a life of its own, the Top 40 chart life of Sister Sledge was far shorter. In 1982, they remade the Mary Wells No. 1 classic of 1964, "My Guy" and made it into a Top 25 hit. But that would be it here. In 1985, the sisters stunned the music world when "Frankie" made them stars in England, hitting No. 1 in June and July of that year, spending four weeks at the top.
These days, the sisters are a trio now with Kathy leaving for a solo career in 1989. But every so often, the four come together to do some shows or in 2001, re-record "We Are Family" in a show of solidarity in this country after the attacks on American soil on September 11 that year.
"We Are Family" is a part of everyday life and not just because it was a disco anthem.
It also became the savior for four sisters' careers together.
No comments:
Post a Comment