For the record, they actually are family. Debbie, Joni, Kim and Kathy were four sisters from Philly who grew up singing at church, formed a band while in school and released their first single while still high & middle schoolers in ‘71. Moderate success followed through the 70s, but nothing terribly exciting.

However, in 1978 Sister Sledge were introduced to Nile Rogers & Bernard Edwards from Chic and Rogers/Edwards agreed to produce their next album. At this time Rogers/Edwards were white hot, with Chic delivering one hit after another. Sister Sledge worked with them on their next album ‘We Are Family”, which was released in ’79. And for a glorious 18 months in 1979-80, Sister Sledge were mega disco divas! The album had three fabulous hits – the title track ‘We Are Family’, ‘Lost In Music’ and ‘He’s The Greatest Dancer’. These are songs that even today can fill a dance floor in seconds and you should see Nidhi bopping to these whenever I put these on at home ?! I suspect the fact Nidhi too is from a family of four sisters may have a little to do with this as well ?

The sound the two bands – Chic & Sister Sledge – is very similar for one simple reason – Rogers/Edwards wrote the lyrics, arranged the music and Rogers & Edwards played guitars and the Chic’s band played on every song on the ‘We Are Family’ album. Apparently, the sisters would arrive at the recording studio not even knowing what they were going to record that day. Rogers & Edwards would give them the lyrics and music and off they would go! Obviously the sisters had oodles of talent as they took a scenario of zero knowledge of their songs and turned them into music that they absolutely owned! In fact, ‘He’s the Greatest Dancer’ was originally meant to be on a Chic album but Rogers & Edwards couldn’t figure out how to fit it in. So they gave it Sister Sledge to sing- lucky sisters, right?! ?It became a smash hit immediately on release.

Of course, we knew nothing of all this as teenagers in Delhi. We just loved their music coming through the radio. The anthemic ‘We Are Family’ was a firm favourite on ‘A Date With You’ and ‘In The Groove’ as was ‘Lost In Music’.  Nidhi’s told me she had these on her cassettes and I’m pretty sure so did my sister. Unfortunately, just as quickly, Sister Sledge faded away and by 1981, they were pretty much gone from our mix tapes and the radio. They made a brief reappearance in ’85 with ‘Frankie’, which was also produced by Nile Rogers

He’s The Greatest Dancer

Lost In Music