The event, which will take place on June 10 on the White House’s South Lawn, will feature Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight, Charlie Wilson, Kirk Franklin, Anthony Hamilton, Brittney Spencer, Trombone Shorty, Raheem Devaughn, Doug E. Fresh, Patina Miller and Roy Wood, Jr. This year’s performers were selected for “their mark on the culture in studios, pulpits, and stages over their successful careers,” per a White House press release.
The celebratory concert comes three years after Biden signed bipartisan legislation establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday. Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19 annually, commemorates the end of slavery in the United States.
Music legend Patti LaBelle turns 80 years old on May 24.
LaBelle is still touring seven months a year – and loving it. The legendary singer discusses smoking, swimming, sweet potato pie and her phenomenally famous friends: Elton, Otis, Laura Nyro and the Stones.
“Last week I got back from Kentucky, Detroit, Saint Louis and Atlanta. I spend at least seven months of the year touring.”
Patti LaBelle in Los Angeles, circa 1974. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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 hits with songs such as I Sold My Heart to the Junkman and cover versions of You’ll Never Walk Alone and Over the Rainbow. They were a classic girl group of their time – dressed in identical gowns, tiaras and gloves.
I’m very shy and laid-back off stage. I don’t socialise well. Offstage I’m very quiet. I’m boring. Very boring.
About Elton John. As plain old Reg Dwight, he was her pianist when she toured England in the late 60s. “Every night after the show we’d go to my flat, play cards and I’d win pounds. I’d always send him home with Tupperware, with something to eat for the night or next day.”
Fast forward to the early 00s and she joined Elton for a duet in Vegas. “At the end, he took off this huge diamond ring shaped like a cross. I said, ‘Elton, don’t forget your bling.’ He said, ‘It’s yours. I’m giving it to you for all your Tupperware.’” Does she wear it? “I can’t ’cos it’s too big!”
‘I thought I was going to drown Otis Redding!’
Otis Redding tried to teach her to swim in the 1960s. “I thought I was going to drown Otis because I was pulling him down with me. I loved Otis Redding, and I still speak to his wife.” Redding, who died aged 26, seemed so much older than his years. “He had an old spirit, you’re right about that. Such a gentleman, such a nice man to all of us, to all of the ladies in the world.”
Read the full interview on The Guardian
