Catching Up With Nona Hendryx

Most people know Nona Hendryx as one third of the groundbreaking group Labelle. In fact, they began during the girl group era of the early '60s as Patti Labelle and the Bluebelles, a quartet. The initial lineup featured Labelle, Hendryx, Sarah Dash and Cindy Birdsong, who wound up leaving to join The Supremes. Patti Labelle and the Bluebelles achieved moderate success in the '60s, with little to indicate what their next incarnation would be like.

The trio of Labelle, Hendryx and Dash made it into the '70s intact. But unlike most of their girl group contemporaries, their evolution in sound and style paralleled the changing times. In their new incarnation – as Labelle – the tame lyrics and matching dresses were out, replaced by a mix of glam rock and R&B and outfits that featured everything from wild feathers to space suits, a la George Clinton. As Hendryx has said, “I thought nothing of walking down the street in a martian-type outfit during the daytime.”

Labelle released half a dozen albums in the early to mid '70s that earned them considerable commercial and critical success. Of course, their biggest hit was the 1974 chart-topper “Lady Marmalade.” Written by Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan, the song about a New Orleans prostitute remains their defining moment. Not only has “Lady Marmalade” been covered by other artists over the years, but Labelle’s version still gets significant airplay today.

After Labelle broke up in late 1976, the three members of the group wasted little time embarking on their respective solo careers. Of course, we all know what happened to Patti Labelle. Between her tenure as the group’s frontwoman, her soaring voice and her mainstream inclinations, it was no great shock that she became a star on her own. Sarah Dash released several solo albums, scoring a disco hit with “Sinner Man,” and sung on records by other artists as well. But the most interesting and eclectic career without a doubt has been that of Nona Hendryx. There is no question that Hendryx was the space-age spirit of Labelle, writing many of their later songs and strongly influencing their fashion sense. Her solo career bears this out. And if she’s never become a big star on the level of Patti Labelle, she has continually taken risks, scored her successes on her own terms, developed an impressive reputation among her peers and above all, proven herself to be a true artist.

Hendryx released her self-titled solo debut in 1977. A bold mix of hard rock and R&B, it received critical acclaim but vanished virtually without a trace from stores and got no airplay. A big reason for this was that even in an age where radio playlists were more varied than they are today, people still had no idea how to promote a black woman who made, what was by industry standards, “non-black” music. One highlight of Nona Hendryx was “Winning,” a song that became a hit for Santana just a few years later.

Hendryx didn’t release her second solo disc for another five years. That album, Nona, was more dance-oriented than her debut and provided her with a club smash in “B-Boys” and an R&B hit in “Keep it Confidential.” Her solo output over the last 25 years or so has been sporadic but fascinating. Hendryx released a New Age album called Skin Diver in 1989 that was produced by Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream. Three years later, she returned with You Have to Cry Sometime, a disc of duets with Billy Vera of “At This Moment” fame. Vera is not the only artist Hendryx has worked with over the years, however; far from it. In one form or another, she has collaborated with Prince, Keith Richards, Talking Heads, Yoko Ono, Bounty Killer, Graham Parker, Garland Jeffreys, Boy George, Peter Gabriel, Cameo, Laurie Anderson and ‘80s synth-pop group Our Daughters Wedding, among others. Openly bisexual, she was part of last year’s True Colors tour, a project spearheaded by Cyndi Lauper. Most recently, she reunited with Patti  and Sarah for Back to Now, the first Labelle studio outing in over 30 years.

As if all that isn’t enough, Hendryx has also written a children’s book and co-written the Emmy-nominated track “Children of the World” for a Disney TV special. She is a respected performance artist and has also dabbled in traditional acting over the years. She has worked extensively with writer-director Charles Randolph-Wright on the play with music Blue, the film On the One and other projects. Nona Hendryx is a singer, writer, producer, actress and ultimately -- as she told me when we spoke -- an explorer. This has been reflected over the years in both her art and her life. Whether you’re black or white, straight or gay, young or old or anything in between, if you consider yourself an explorer, you owe it to yourself to become familiar with Nona Hendryx.

BRM: The new Labelle album, Back to Now, is the first Labelle album in over thirty years.  I’m just curious about how the decision to reunite came about from the three of you?

HENDRYX: Well it was something that kind of grew over time. Patti had been talking about [it and then] when the Internet happened, it would become chatter on the web. Is it going to happen, or is it not going to happen? So all of that was going on and at one point I said to Patti, you know, either we can do this or not. You have to stop announcing it. And also, if we’re going to do it, we should do it soon because we’re all getting older, and it would be great to do this [while] the three of us [are] in fairly good condition. 

The next thing happened was that I had [a] song that I found and held for Labelle. Michael [Waters] and Aoni [Morgan] had been writing a song in tribute for Rosa Parks. I thought it was a beautiful song and they asked me to write some additional lyrics for it, and I did, and then I channeled it more for Labelle and asked Patti and Sarah to record it because in the process, Rosa Parks died. We recorded it not long after that, as a tribute to her, with the hope of just putting it out there for people.


I noticed that song [“Dear Rosa”] on the album. You not only co-wrote it, but produced the track. I was curious to know what Rosa Parks meant to you personally.

I don’t know whether it would be [like the] inauguration of Barack Obama, you know? That’s how much it means to me, in terms of Rosa Parks and just what one small decisions in your life, or something that you do or don’t do, how it can affect the world.

In terms of working again after all these years with Patti and Sarah, what are the pros and cons of getting back and working with two people that you’ve know for over forty years?

It’s a difficulty in [terms of] how decisions are made. [As a solo artist] it’s just you, and you make the decision.

[The pros include] having Patti and Sarah to write the music specifically for [and] to spend time together in a new way. Some of it is familiar, but some if it is also very new and very enjoyable. Our conversations are different today than they were then, in that we are older [and have] grown a little bit wiser.

Lenny Kravitz produced some of the tracks on the new album and I was curious to know what it was like working with Lenny?

It was great. He is a mixture of many things, and Labelle are a mixture of many things. The whole [idea of] black or African American [artists] in a rock format was [a way in which] we stood out from all the other girl groups. He totally gets it, so when you’re having a conversation about music, in many aspects, we come from a similar place.


In terms of what you were [just] saying…  it’s not that easy for black women to be accepted doing hard rock. I was wondering how it was for you thirty years ago when you were doing that. Did you run up against any obstacles at the time?

Many obstacles [and] the obstacles were on both sides of the street, the white side of the street, in terms of, this is not your music, which I felt [was not true] because I’m from Chuck Berry and Little Richard. [Rock] comes from there. And from the black side, well, you know, you [were] more acceptable if you were doing R&B or funk, but even funk was not acceptable. R&B was more acceptable. I did get that from the business side, not from the audience. That’s where you had these categories that you’re supposed to fit into, and if you don’t, then they don’t know what to do with you.

Switching gears for a moment, I read an article recently about the Labelle reunion in the LA Times. The writer said he asked you for a list of your influences and one of the people you mentioned was [writer, guru and former Harvard professor] Ram Dass. That caught my eye because  [he] has been my Dad’s hero for about 35 years now. How did you find out about Ram Dass and what does he mean to you?

It has been an area of, I guess, spiritual [and] psychological exploration that I’ve been on for a long time. I’ve always been an explorer and Ram Dass is an explorer and there are other writers that I’ve been influenced by. I think it’s really much more about the idea of the internal life that we have. We live [a] really external life, and I’m much more interested in the internal life than I am the external. [I’ve always had] a desire to explore because I have always questioned religion and been much more spiritual. Who are we? Why are we here? What is this? What are we doing? Those are questions I’ve always asked from an early age.

Labelle’s most popular song from back in the day was obviously “Lady Marmalade” I’m just curious to get your thoughts on the song, some 30-odd years after the fact.

Well, it’s a great song and at the time it had a certain amount of controversy to it, but it’s one of those songs, as always in life -- not always, but pretty much -- things occur that you weren’t looking for, and “Lady Marmalade” was one of those things. I am grateful to have been a part of it, and that it is a song [that] still, when we perform it, it seems to make people happy. It’s a good thing.

Last year, you were apart of Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors tour.  I was curious [about what] that experience was like.

It was a great experience. ..It was great to be able to spend time with these artists I admire, and some [who] I count as friends, and make music. Cyndi and I did a song together and it was just a very supportive [atmosphere], not only for us, but also for the audience. The audience, you know, people coming together, who feel [like] outsiders and feel ostracized for lots of different reasons, to come together and everybody is there really too support you. It just makes for a very joyful experience.

I also understand that you wrote a children’s book? Can you tell me a little about that?

Yes, I did. It was a very limited edition… It’s called The Brownies.  It came out of looking [for gifts] for my niece and nephew, when they were young, and finding it very difficult to find books for young people that are for black kids. So I decided to write something [myself] and put music to it, because children are more interested in something when there is music attached to it.

One thing I always found disturbing in a way, was that the color black is considered negative  or less than or dark or all those things. And part of this story is about how if we don’t have darkness, then we don’t have light. One is not more of a positive or negative than the other, and why have these things been described over time as they’ve been described, in a way that is negative to our people. I put it in a way that children would understand, really bringing the idea of darkness to light.

What do you have in store for 2009, either with Labelle or on your own?

I’ll be doing more [shows] and we have some other things we’re going to organize. A lot to do around Rosa Parks, either with Labelle or on my own. More likely with Labelle, in terms of being able to keep the memory alive and celebrate her.

I’m [also] thinking about how to bring my music to an audience for 2009. I’m still working [on my project] Skin Diver. It’s a multi-media musical for lack of other words to describe it. Primarily I perform at performance art spaces, galleries, and museums. What else am I doing? Writing more songs for artists and producing records. I‘m doing a lot of different things.

-Dave Steinfeld