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
“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 also was known for He’s the Greatest Dancer, Lost in the 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
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joni Sledge, the singer best-known for the disco anthem We Are Family, has died aged 60. 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. She had not been ill and the cause of death is unknown. Sledge, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[403,137],"tags":[4940,4941],"class_list":["post-301088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebrity-news","category-showbiz","tag-signer-dead","tag-sister-sledge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=301088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301088\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=301088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=301088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=301088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}