Patti LaBelle

Patricia Louise HoltEdwards better known under the stage name Patti LaBelle, is an American singer, author, actress, and entrepreneur. LaBelle began her career in the early 1960s as lead singer and front woman of the vocal group, Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles. Following the groups name change to Labelle in the early 1970s, she released the iconic disco song Lady Marmalade and the group later became the first AfricanAmerican vocal group to land the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. After the group split in 1976, LaBelle began a successful solo career, starting with her critically acclaimed debut album, which included the careerdefining song, You Are My Friend. LaBelle became a mainstream solo star in 1984 following the success of the singles, If Only You Knew, New Attitude and Stir It Up, with the latter two crossing over to pop audiences becoming radio staples.

LaBelle was born Patricia Louise Holte on May 24, 1944 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the third of four girls to Henry and Bertha Holte. Her father was a railroad worker and her mother was a domestic. Despite enjoying her childhood, LaBelle would later write in her memoirs, Dont Block the Blessings, that her parents marriage was abusive. When Patti was seven, she was sexually molested by a family friend. At twelve, her parents marriage came to an end though Patti remained close to her father. Patti joined a local church choir at the Beulah Baptist Church at ten and performed her first solo two years later, while she also grew up listening to secular music styles such as RampB and jazz music. When she was fifteen, she won a talent competition at her high school. This success led to Patti forming her first singing group, the Ordettes, in 1960, with schoolmates Jean Brown, Yvonne Hogen and Johnnie Dawson. The group, with Patti as front woman, became a local attraction until two of its mem

Source: Wikipedia