By Karu F. Daniels
Every year after the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announces its latest class of inductees, a flurry of critical debate ensues about the validity of the music acts selected.
And like many years before, Labelle didn’t make the cut this year.
The groundbreaking, genre-defying vocal trio – comprising Patti LaBelle, Sarah Dash and Nona Hendryx – hasn’t even been considered for the prestigious music honor.
The glaring omission is not lost on Hendryx, Labelle’s co-founder and chief songwriter, who has continuously illuminated the legacy of the group since they first hit No. 1 on the pop charts with 1974’s “Lady Marmalade,” over a decade after establishing themselves as one of the premier girl groups of the 1960s.
“You know, at one point it was something that was like, ‘Wow, why aren’t we even nominated?’ I don’t think we’ve even been nominated but you get to a point where these things don’t really matter in a way,” Hendryx exclusively tells URL Media. “I think maybe having ‘Lady Marmalade’ and Labelle, and our accomplishments recognized by the Smithsonian in the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and listed on the Library of Congress’ [National Recording Registry] become, in a sense, kind of more meaningful to me than the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I mean, it’s like, you know, I know what we did.”
She continued: “I don’t know whether it has the same meaning to me specifically. I have to ask my sister Patti how she feels about that. She may have other words, but it doesn’t feel like, ‘Oh, we need to be there,’ or if it’s something that’s going to sort of solidify who we were and who we are. I don’t know, I don’t feel like there’s a need to be there.”
The trio — originally formed in Philadelphia as a quartet — went on to launch solo careers following their disbandment in the late 1970s. But before doing so, Labelle broke barriers for women in music equipped with their Afrofuturistic costumes and tackling then-taboo subject matter in their songs.
“We were kind of like this odd musical entity,” Hendryx rationalized about the snub. “We were gospel, funk, R&B, rock and theater. I don’t think people really could go like, ‘Oh, they’re a rock band,’ or ‘Oh, they’re this.’”
“Although the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame have now widened their lens as to who is included, Labelle has always been, and I see it more in retrospect, in a category of its own,” she added.
The 81-year-old singer, songwriter and tech visionary isn’t concerned for validation; she continues to carry the torch and will celebrate the legacy of Labelle during Lincoln Center’s “Summer For The City” series on June 28 in New York City with a star-studded concert featuring Grammy Award winner Ledisi, Tony Award winner Adrienne Warren, former Family Stand frontwoman Sandra St. Victor and vocal powerhouse Kimberly Nichole, among others. Patti LaBelle is scheduled to serve as a special guest co-host for the David Geffen Hall event – officially titled “Nightbirds, The Music of Labelle.” Produced by Hendryx and her Dream Machine Studio, the robust program will include performances of “Lady Marmalade” alongside songs from the group’s seminal albums: 1973’s “Pressure Cookin,’” 1974’s “Nightbirds,” 1975’s “Phoenix” and 1976’s “Chameleon.”
Hendryx described the concert as a prelude to the forthcoming rock musical she is developing with two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage. The script for the theatrical project is in the final stages with a plan to have its first workshop at Dartmouth College this summer. Producers are eyeing a Broadway run for 2028.
“How it began was that I realized that the story of Labelle had not really been told, that people knew certain things about Patti, knew certain things about Sarah and about me, but they didn’t really know the story of Labelle,” she shared. “And we’ve done many interviews about all the things that we’ve done, but we sort of disbanded at the height of our success in a way, and so a lot of the story was not revealed.”
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