Editor’s note: Let’s face it. Patti LaBelle is like family. She is that auntie who will tell it like it ’tis, that mamma who will care for us and love on us, that sassy sister-girl who is still our ride or die. Whether she entered our lives during her Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles stage (1960s), her Labelle stage (1970s) or her solo diva stage (1980s to … oh, heck, today), we feel like we know her. Patti’s the Philly girl who went through the heartache of watching all three of her sisters succumb to cancer before they’d reached the age of 44. She’s the author of a memoir and four best-selling cookbooks, the lady behind Patti’s Pies and her Patti’s Good Life line of packaged foods, which recently added a breakfast component.
We’ve watched Patti as an actress in recurring roles on A Different World and Greenleaf, and she will appear in a few episodes of the upcoming season of The Wonder Years. But it’s her onstage antics that stand out. Vintage Patti watchers know that seeing Patti in performance — rolling around on the floor, back arched, shoes kicked aside, legs flailing — is a sight not easy to forget. Lawd. Have. Mercy. Yet the real reason we loved Patti is the reason we love her still: She possesses a range and a vocal virtuosity that simply stirs the soul, even as it changes and gains nuance with the passage of time. Now 78, Patti says that she doesn’t sing as fast as she did years ago and that “there is something in my voice that wasn’t there back in the day,” but she’s still hitting those high notes. And she’s still performing — sometimes sharing the bill with seasoned songstresses like Stephanie Mills and Gladys Knight.
The divorced mother of five and grandmother of four (she had one biological son and later adopted two of her sister’s children and two neighborhood children after their mothers died), Patti attributes her vocal longevity to the fact that she doesn’t smoke, drink, party or do drugs. Here are more insights from her interview with AARP’s Rob Tannenbaum.
(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
On Becoming Patti LaBelle
You should never hide your light, but [as a child] I hid it for as long as I could until I had somebody in my ear say, “You can really do this! Don’t be afraid!” Ms. Chapman, my church choir director, was the reason I became Patti LaBelle.
On Getting the Most out of Life
Say everything, do everything, never block your blessings by holding in and by being shy. I was very shy. I still am, but I realized that I had to let go and let God, and let everything [insided me] out, because people have to find out who you are.