“They believed that if you learn the song or even hear it before you record it, it's going to sound rehearsed”: Kathy Sledge on why producers Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards didn’t play We Are Family to Sister Sledge right up until they recorded it

Different producers have different ways of ensuring that they get the best possible take out of the singers that they record, and for Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, it seems that one of their strategies was to keep the song from the artist for as long as possible.

The news comes via Kathy Sledge, founding member of Sister Sledge, whose greatest hits were written and produced by the Rodgers/Edwards dream team. Of these, few are better known than the iconic We Are Family, but Sledge admits that she and her sisters knew very little about it before stepping into the vocal booth.

"There is a secret behind why it just keeps coming back, I actually recorded the song without ever getting to hear it until it was time to record because... they [Rodgers and Edwards] believed in spontaneity," Sledge told Newsweek.

"So they believed that if you learn the song or even hear it before you record it, it's going to sound rehearsed and we wanted to sound fresh and new."

Sister Sledge - We Are Family (Official Music Video) - YouTube

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While this technique may have yielded great results - the Rodgers/Edwards-produced Sister Sledge songs are now regarded as disco classics - Kathy admits that her sister, Debbie, was sometimes “agitated” by the fact she didn’t get the chance to do any preparation prior to recording day.

Kathy Sledge, though, was fully onboard: "Whenever I work with producers I feel like the key word is I trust... so it wasn't nerve-wracking to me, it was exciting to record that way," she says.

Given that We Are Family is essentially a celebration of familial bonding, it may come as a shock to learn that there’s been a schism in the Sledge camp, with Kathy performing as Sister Sledge ft Kathy Sledge and Debbie operating as Sister Sledge ft Sledgendary, a group that also features her daughter Camille Sledge, son David Sledge, nephew Thaddeus Sledge and vocalist Tanya Ti-et.

Joni Sledge died in 2017, aged 60, while Kim Sledge, the other founding member, left the band in 2019.