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Sunday 12 March 2017
'Numbness fell upon our family' - Sister Sledge star Joni dies aged 60
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Sister Sledge - Kim Sledge, Debbie Sledge and Joni Sledge, who has died aged 60
Joni Sledge, who with her sisters recorded the defining dance anthem We Are Family, has died aged 60, the band's representative said.
Sledge was found dead in her home by a friend in Phoenix, Arizona, on Friday, the band's publicist Biff Warren said. A cause of death has not been determined.
"On yesterday, numbness fell upon our family. We welcome your prayers as we weep the loss of our sister, mother, aunt, niece and cousin," the family said.
Sledge and her sisters Debbie, Kim and Kathy formed Sister Sledge in 1971, but had their breakout success in 1979 with We Are Family. The dance song became an anthem of unity and women's empowerment.
Sledge is survived by a son besides her sisters and other relatives.
"The four of us had been in the music business for eight years and we were frustrated. We were saying: 'Well, maybe we should go to college and just become lawyers or something other than music, because it really is tough,'" Sledge told The Guardian in an interview last year.
But then they met Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers of the hit group Chic, and their breakout soon came.
The pair wrote and produced their album We Are Family, and soon the women had their first major hit with disco jam The Greatest Dancer, which became a top 10 hit in May 1979.
Their biggest hit would come a month later with the title track, an infectious dance anthem that celebrated their familial connection with the refrain: "We are family, I got all my sisters with me."
While it celebrated their sisterhood, the 1979 hit so also became an anthem for female empowerment and unity. It would become their signature hit, and was nominated for a Grammy. Both the song and album sold more than a million copies.
The women also had a hit with a cover of the Mary Wells song My Guy in 1982, but would never duplicate the success they had in the 1970s.
Still, Sister Sledge continued; while sister Kathy left the group for a solo career, the trio of sisters continued to perform and record, including a performance for Pope Francis in 2015.
Mr Warren said they last performed together in concert in October.
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