Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hey Sister, Soul Sister, Go Sister, November 7, 2000
The first five tracks of this album do it for me... then slowly as LaBelle edges its way into the '70s that funky Hammond/Horn/Percussion driven Crescent City N'awleans funk (produced by Allen Tousainte) give way to the poppy '80s (with a brief reprise via "Get You Somebody New". By no means am I putting Patti down, but Labelle was a funk powerhouse... unlike other "girl" group at the time they weren't "cute" and "pretty" they were RAW and SEXY, and Grooves like Lady M. sizzled over the air waves (it was too late for many radio stations to pull it from the airwaves til they realized that the song was about. In addition to Lady M., Are You Lonely and What Can I Do For You (both message heavy tunes) are worth the purchase of the CD alone, especially if you can't hunt down the original albums !
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Patti sadly overshadowed by the camp fest of Labelle, November 16, 2002
By A Customer
This excellent compilation of mid to late 70s material draws upon the best of Labelle and Patti's early solo recordings during their Epic years. It is also possibly the place to start for newer fans interested in checking out Patti's legacy before she became a full fledged supper club soul artiste.The CD is divided equally between Labelle and Patti, the solo artiste. Trouble is, the first half featuring Labelle's best known numbers from their three Epic albums ("Nightbirds", "Phoenix" and "Chameleon") is so energetic, exciting and uniformly excellent they badly overshadow Patti's solo work. Understandably, half the 8 Labelle tracks here (including their #1 smash hit "Lady Marmalade") are extracted from their chart album "Nightbirds", though the quality of these are more than matched by 2 cuts each from "Phoenix" and "Chameleon". "Messing With My Mind" is as tough as "Get Me Somebody New" is funky. Somebody should lobby CBS to release the never-before-reissued "Phoenix" on CD, seeing that both "Nightbirds" and "Chameleon" have long been available in CD format. Unfortunately, what goes up must come down. After the excitement and camp fest of Labelle, Patti's soft soul MOR ballads which take up the second half of this CD just seems so tame and boring. Apart from the samba styled "Teach Me Tonight", nothing that Patti cut with Epic remotely rivals the work of Labelle. Without the presence of Sarah and Nona to spice things up and lend Labelle its progressive touch, Patti gives in to her own smaltzy and maudlin tendencies and there's plenty of evidence to suggest that this was at work here. This "best of" in the Legacy series is nevertheless a terrific compilation. Buy it for the two rare-on-CD Labelle tracks from "Phoenix" if nothing else.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Forget about those other all-female groups..., June 19, 2000
because Sarah Dash, Nona Hendrix, Cindy Birdsong (who later became a Supreme), and Patti LaBelle puts them all to shame! And this CD highlights the best of their work as well as Patti's early solo work. Although most will know them for Lady Marmalade, that song doesn't even come close to showing the true talent of these ladies. And this CD can read like a soundtrack of someone's like. Isn't It A Shame - a poignant tale of love not always going like expected. You Turn Me On, so soulful and sensuous. Get You Somebody New - puts a man in his place much better than En Vogue's Never Gonna Get It. This CD even features some lesser known earlier work by Patti like the inspiration Quiet Time and the funky Me Gusta Tu Baille. This CD is a REQUIREMENT for anyone who is a fan of Patti and/or LaBelle.
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