Patti was raised in the melting pot of Southwest Philly. Although affected by her parents' separation when she was only 12, Patti lived a happy, wholesome teenage life – running track, singing in the glee club and acting in plays at John Bartram High School. But her extraordinary musical gift emerged most clearly in the Beulah Baptist Church Choir, where she remained a soloist even after embarking on a professional career.

Patti was still only a teenager when she and Cindy Birdsong (later a member of The Supremes) sang with the Ordettes. When two girls left the group, Nona Hendrix and Sarah Dash signed on and Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells was born. This was in 1961. By the following year, the girls had their first multimillion seller, "I Sold My Heart to the Junkman." With other hits, including "All Or Nothing" and "You'll Never Walk Alone," the Bluebells accrued a devoted following and a status as one of the foremost girl groups of the era.

Then in the late '60s, when British rock was eclipsing the homegrown girl-group, California and Motown sounds in the U.S., the Bluebells toured England, playing to wildly enthusiastic audiences. But a musical revolution had obviously taken place worldwide. So when British producer Vicki Wickham, impressed by the Bluebells' still-untapped talents, offered to effect a stylistic transformation, the group consented. The result was LaBelle, a trio of massive musical power and political sensibility that was consistently ahead of its time.

The trend-setting singer/songwriter Laura Nyro, long a Bluebells fan, was even more impressed by LaBelle and recorded her landmark album, "It's Gonna Take A Miracle," with the group. The recording itself was a miracle, created jam-session style during two intense weeks in a small Philadelphia studio. Shortly thereafter, Warner Brothers released the group's first albums, "LaBelle" and "Moon Shadow." "Pressure Cookin'" soon followed on RCA. But it was "Nightbirds," LaBelle's first Epic album, that sent the group soaring into the superstar stratosphere, largely on the strength of "Lady Marmalade" ("Voulez-Vous Couchez Avec Moi Ce Soir?") which became a disco anthem of the '70s.

Extensive tours and two more popular albums, "Phoenix" and "Chameleon," followed – but the burden of being musical trailblazers eventually became too great. "Rocked and rolled out," as Patti describes it, the group broke up on good terms in 1976.

In the early '80s, mega-hit popularity on the musical charts inexplicably eluded her – despite marvelous single releases like "The Best Is Yet to Come" (with Grover Washington, Jr.), "Love Has Finally Come at Last" (with Bobby Womack) and "If You Only Knew." Superstardom anointed her again, however, with two hits from the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack: "New Attitude" and "Stir It Up."

Those hits were followed by her 1985 debut album for MCA Records, "Winner In You," which went platinum thanks to sizzlers like "On My Own" (with Michael McDonald), "Oh, People," "Kiss Away the Pain" and "Something Special." She hushed, then whipped the crowd into a frenzy at Live Aid; left the audience speechless on NBC-TV's Emmy-winning "Motown Salutes the Apollo"; was one of the first artists (at Coretta King's request) to musically commemorate the inaugural celebration of the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday; rivaled Miss Liberty herself at the closing ceremonies of the Statue of Liberty celebrations; starred in her own NBC TV special (with guests Bill Cosby, Cyndi Lauper and Luther Vandross); criss-crossed the country on several national tours; knocked 'em dead in Europe and Japan; made two more movies, Unnatural Causes (with Alfred Woodard and John Ritter) and Sing (with Lorraine Bracco and Louise Lasser). In the late '80s and early '90s, a triumphant Patti continued to release chart-topping albums, including "Be Yourself" and "This Christmas."