We Are Family is the third studio album by the American R&B vocal group Sister Sledge, released on January 22, 1979, in the United States and on April 30, 1979, in the United Kingdom by Cotillion Records. The album was written and produced by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of the band Chic, and includes four hit singles: the title track, "He's the Greatest Dancer", "Lost in Music" and "Thinking of You", all of which have been sampled, remixed, and reissued in the decades after the album's release. The album reached number one on the Top R&B Albums chart and peaked at number three on the Billboard 200, making it the band's most commercially successful album. In 2013, NME named it among the 500 greatest albums of all time.[2]
Background
Chic worked with Sister Sledge, who had signed to Atlantic in 1973, at the inspiration of Atlantic president Jerry L. Greenberg. Nile Rodgers remembered later; " That's why we came up with We Are Family. [–] Everything he said about them gave us a picture of them. You've got to remember, we never even met them. [-] All of the content on that record came from that one day with the president [–] I was fascinated and enthralled by the concept of people who loved music who could be in the midst of the whole disco era."[3]
We Are Family is one of two albums produced by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers in 1979, the other being Chic's third album Risqué including hit singles "Good Times" and "My Forbidden Lover". Edwards and Rodgers would only show the songs to Sister Sledge once the sisters were in front of the studio microphones.[4] Rodgers has written that of the various albums produced by The Chic Organization for themselves and others, "pound for pound, I think We Are Family is our best album hands down."[5]
The lead vocals to "We Are Family" were recorded in a single take by the then 19-year-old Kathy Sledge.[6] "He's the Greatest Dancer" was the first single from the album and became the group's first major hit, reaching the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the R&B chart. We Are Family was digitally remastered and reissued on CD by Rhino Records in 1995.
The New York Times wrote that Edwards and Rodgers "have distilled disco down to its seductive essentials... The result is a spare, spacious elegance."[14]
