P atti LaBelle is approaching a big birthday. “Eighty good ones, right? Eighty!” she says incredulously. “And it’s still getting better.
” How are you going to celebrate on Friday? “It’s a surprise. My son’s not telling me anything, but I have my beautiful gown and my beautiful jewels ready. And I have another hairstyle for my outfit.
I’m prepared !” I ask her if she is still performing. She looks at me, shocked. Is she performing? Is she ever not performing? “Last week I got back from Kentucky, Detroit, Saint Louis and Atlanta.
I spend at least seven months of the year touring.” In her most famous incarnation, as the leader of the trio Labelle (alongside Sarah Dash and the phenomenal Nona Hendryx) singing the soul-funk classic, 1974’s Lady Marmalade, she wore a silver space-suit and boots that would put Elton John to shame (he was her pianist before he was famous). Today, she’s equally stylish – black ski-slope hair, huge eyelashes, ferocious silver nails, white diamond hoop earrings and a ruby ring you could land a helicopter on.
Her skin is fabulous. She looks a good 20 years younger. LaBelle is at home in Philadelphia, where she grew up, when we speak on video call.
Her house is part Charles Saatchi, part Liberace – abstract sculpture behind her, glitzy chandelier above, shih-tzu barking in the background. When Lady Marmalade was released 50 years ago, it was already her second coming. In the early 60s, Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles had h.