Songoftheday 3/1/14 - Runnin' hot runnin cold I was runnin' into overload, that was extreme....

Patti Labelle - "New Attitude"
from the album Beverly Hills Cop (Original Soundtrack) (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #17 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 9

Today's Song of the Day is by R&B singer Patti LaBelle, who formed the singing group the Ordettes in her hometown of Philadelphia at the end of the 1950, with backup singers Nona Hendryx and Sarah Dash and eventually future Supreme Cindy Birdsong completing the lineup. Although they were getting noticed and were signed on the good word about their live shows, their first foray on to the charts were a little more nefarious. When their record label released the single "I Sold My Heart To The Junkman", it was attributed to Patti and her group now renamed Patti LaBelle and the Blue Belles, even though it was actually recorded by Chicago act the Starlets. The company was sued, and the Starlets got paid, but it did kick off the career for LaBelle and the Blue Belles. They would go on to record their own material, with two more top-40 pop hits, including their #34 version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic "You'll Never Walk Alone".

Birdsong would leave in the late 60s to replace Florence Ballard in the Supremes, and the remaining three would in time transform their act into LaBelle, a "glam" soul/funk/rock trio that would open for the likes of the Who and the Stones, and while it took a while for their success to take off, but when it did, it scored them a #1 pop and R&B single in 1974 with "Lady Marmalade". However that success was fleeting, and after a few more moderately success hits on the R&B charts, the trio split as LaBelle wanted a more classic soul approach to Hendryx's leanings to the glam rock world.

LaBelle would release her debut solo album in 1977, and got into the top-40 on the soul chart with her first single "Joy To Have Your Love". She did dabble again into dance music, landing a top-10 club hit in 1979 with "Music Is My Way Of Life". Patti would finally make the Hot 100 pop chart as a solo artist in 1983, with the tender ballad "If Only You Knew", which almost made the top-40 but did manage to top the R&B chart. The following year, Patti not only appeared in the movie A Soldier's Story, but she contributed two songs to the soundtrack to the Eddie Murphy action-comedy Beverly Hills Cop. Both songs were produced by German synth whiz Harold Faltermayer, and were a big departure from her previous solo work. "New Attitude" was a fitting title for this change of style, and even the video put it on display, with a formerly frumpy LaBelle transforming into that wall of shellacked hair(piece) that we would recognize her for. The song was released as the third single from the soundtrack after the Pointer Sisters' "Neutron Dance" and Glenn Frey's "The Heat Is On"....

"New Attitude" brought Patti her for top-40 solo pop hit in May of 1985, while climbing to #3 on the R&B chart. The single had its biggest success in the clubs, topping the Billboard Dance chart (as a double-sided 12" single with Faltermayer's "Axel F") for two weeks.

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You can't get any more dish-y that this group of Patti, Gladys Knight, and Dionne Warwick segueing into Patti live from a TV special..

and again in concert in New York...

Finally, here she is at 60 (!) on VH1 Divas...


Up tomorrow: a rocker with a Southern Accent bids you to stay away.