Labelle Époque: Nona Hendryx 80

Labelle - Messin' with My Mind

It's post #830 as we ramp up to the 11th anniversary of this page with the 80th birthday of yet another somewhat underrated superstar.

It also pleases me that we get to interrupt the Holy Sausagefest Of Macho Musicians once in a while and give the ladies some.

This woman's been involved in music at a very high level since the early 1960s, when wild beasts roamed an Earth besieged by Beatles.

She started out in a female vocal trio that was popular throughout that era during the Sixties, but it wasn't until their career flagged as the girl groups fell out of favor, and they moved to London at the turn of the 1970s, that they really exploded.

This group -- named for another diva who also turned 80 earlier this year -- traded in their matching outfits for wild, futuristic Space Funk gear and their more staid, traditional material for much broader, funkier and at times darker stuff.

Despite the group's name, and the resulting association with her as essentially the frontperson, most of the tunes were written by today's birthday girl.

Then they had a #1 smash with a song written by other guys, which had a very suggestive chorus in another language and is probably being performed -- with the genuine enthusiasm of lost youth -- by a middle aged father of two at a Karaoke bar somewhere as I type this.

Anyway this track catapulted them, and her, into the stratosphere, and it wasn't long before the tensions within the band produced by that level of cultural saturation helped break them up into three divergent solo careers.

Her first record, although it was tremendous, was so different from Labelle -- showcasing a much harder rocking edge -- that it fell flat, causing her label to drop her.

She joined Avant Rock madmen Material for a bit -- singing lead on a big club hit for them -- and then formed her own group called Zero Cool, which I don't think ever recorded.

In the '80s she hit with several tunes from major motion pictures, and was integral to the anti-Apartheid project about not playing Sun City.

A distant cousin of Guitar God Jimi Hendrix, she's also been in films and TV shows as an actress.

Known for her fruitful and plentiful collaborations with other artists, she's been involved with Talking Heads at their 1980s peak, made records with a diverse range of people from Billy Vera to Yoko Ono, and of course recorded her own stuff.

She even reunites occasionally with Labelle, and did a reunion album with her former bandmates in 2008. Here they are in this completely funked up concert from their heyday, which I glimped off That Place and fixed up all nice like in honor of Nona Hendryx.

Labelle

Beacon Theatre

New York City, New York USA

10.30.1975

01 introduction by Frankie Crocker

02 Black Holes In the Sky

03 System

04 Are You Lonely?

05 Good Intentions

06 What Can I Do for You?

07 Slow Burn/Phoenix (The Amazing Flight of a Lone Star)

08 Cosmic Dancer

09 Far As We Felt Like Goin'

10 band introductions

11 (Can I Speak to You Before You Go to) Hollywood?

12 Lady Marmalade

13 Messin' with My Mind

14 Phoenix (The Amazing Flight of a Lone Star) (reprise)

Total time: 2:00:07

disc break goes after Track 06

Nona Hendryx - vocals & percussion

Patti LaBelle - vocals & percussion

Sarah Dash - vocals & percussion

Eddie Martinez - guitar 

Jeffrey Shannon - drums & percussion 

Carmine Rojas - bass 

Rev. Edward Batts - guitar 

Tony Thompson - drums 

Bud Ellison - piano 

James Brooker - keyboards & synthesizers

320/48K audio streamed from Wolfgang's Vault

spectral analysis is lossless past 20 kHz, making this equivalent to a preFM source

converted to 16/44 CD Audio, edited, repaired, retracked and slightly remastered by EN, October 2024
731 MB FLAC/direct link

So yes, do you feel old yet? Nona Hendryx -- a musical chameleon who gets too little love from the general public -- is 80 years old today. I hope you'll get down to this concert and as you do, voulez-vous, you'll be making those omissions a bit less glaring!--J.