{"id":11687,"date":"2017-03-12T11:45:15","date_gmt":"2017-03-12T11:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/we-are-family-singer-dies-at-60\/"},"modified":"2017-03-12T11:45:15","modified_gmt":"2017-03-12T11:45:15","slug":"we-are-family-singer-dies-at-60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/we-are-family-singer-dies-at-60\/","title":{"rendered":"We Are Family singer dies at 60"},"content":{"rendered":"
Media captionSister Sledge spoke to the BBC in 2015 about why disco lives on<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Joni Sledge, the singer best-known for the disco anthem We Are Family, has died aged 60.<\/p>\n

Sledge, who formed Sister Sledge with her three siblings in 1971, was found unresponsive by a friend at her home in Phoenix, Arizona, her publicist said.<\/p>\n

She had not been ill and the cause of death is unknown.<\/p>\n

Sledge, who is survived by her adult son, last performed with the band in October.<\/p>\n

Her death was announced on social media on Saturday - a week before the group were due to perform in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

"Yesterday, numbness fell upon our family," a statement released on Facebook read.<\/p>\n

Image caption Sister Sledge performing on Top of the Pops <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

"We are saddened to inform you that our dear sister, mother, aunt, niece and cousin, Joni passed away yesterday."<\/p>\n

It added: "We miss her and hurt for her presence, her radiance, and the sincerity with which she loved and embraced life."<\/p>\n

Aside from the Grammy-nominated We Are Family, the hit which sold more than a million copies after it was released in 1978, the group were also known for He's the Greatest Dancer, Lost in Music and a cover of the Motown classic My Guy.<\/p>\n

They sang We Are Family for Pope Francis in 2015.<\/p>\n

The Sledge sisters came from a family of performers, including an actress mother, a Broadway star for a father and an opera singer for a grandmother.<\/p>\n

They performed together from a young age, leading Sledge to note "I can't remember not singing" during an interview with the BBC in 2015.<\/p>\n

However, the four have not stayed together throughout their careers. Instead, the band became a trio after sister Kathy left the band in 1989.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Media captionSister Sledge spoke to the BBC in 2015 about why disco lives on Joni Sledge, the singer best-known for the disco anthem We Are Family, has died aged 60.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}