“I want you to do some backups and maybe we’ll do a duet.” Dash wound up with a prominent vocal on “Make No Mistake” on Richards’ Talk Is Cheap and joined his touring band, where she sang lead on a version of “Time Is on My Side.” Dash also contributed to his subsequent Main Offender solo record. “You know, I’m doing a solo album with some James Brown licks,” Richards told her. In the late Eighties, Dash had a career resurgence with a new album and her collaborations with Keith Richards. As space-age Afrofuturists, Labelle went where few all-women bands did at the time. By the early Seventies, they adapted a glitz-glam look, incorporated more socially conscious songs in their repertoire, and became the first black female pop group to headline the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Labelle were also a groundbreaking culture presence. The stomper about a sex worker - sporting the ear-worm hook “ Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?” (“Do you want to sleep with me tonight?”) - finally put Labelle over the top. We don’t fight!’ She was always the peacemaker.”Īfter Birdsong left to join the Supremes, where she replaced Florence Ballard, the again renamed Labelle bounced around on several labels before “Lady Marmalade” took over the airwaves, hitting Number One in 1975. “We got into a fight and Sarah came in and said, ‘This will not happen. “We had driven from Philly to L.A., and I was irritable and we didn’t have much money,” LaBelle says. LaBelle says that her band mate was also “the person who kept everything together.” LaBelle recalled a moment during the Stones tour when she and Birdsong almost got into a brawl backstage. As the renamed Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles, they crashed the top 40 twice with “Down the Aisle” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” The group also opened for the Stones during some 1965 shows. After Dash had relocated to Philadelphia, she and Hendryx joined forces with LaBelle (then Patricia Holte) and Cindy Birdsong to form the Bluebelles. Although she originally sang in church, she drifted into secular pop with her high school friend Hendryx. The daughter of a pastor, Dash was born and raised in Trenton, New Jersey. She was a lead singer but preferred singing background.”ĭash’s solo track “Oo-La-La, Too Soon” also enjoyed a long shelf life when it was remade in the Eighties as “Oh La, Sassoon” for Vidal Sassoon hair products. “And she was a phenomenally sexy, beautiful woman who had class and elegance. “She had the most beautiful high soprano voice you’d ever want to hear,” LaBelle tells RS. Although she was often overshadowed by Patti LaBelle’s lung power and showmanship and Nona Hendryx’s rock-centric edge, Dash had a sweet feathery voice (not unlike Diana Ross’) that added sensuality to the trio’s sound - heard especially in Dash’s parts on the deep cut “(Can I Speak to You Before You Go to) Hollywood.” No cause of death has been determined pending an autopsy.Īs a founding member of Labelle, Dash appeared on their ubiquitous 1975 dance floor classic “Lady Marmalade” as well as on records by the group’s earlier incarnation, the Bluebelles (1962’s “I Sold My Heart to the Junkman”). According to her cousin and business manager John Dash III, Dash was found dead at her home in Trenton, New Jersey. Sarah Dash - one-third of the powerhouse R&B trio Labelle and also a contributor to Keith Richards’ solo work - died on September 20th at age 76.
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