Nona Hendryx talks to Randall Pinkston

Randall Pinkston: Your exhibition, "Transformation: The Beautiful Cruelty of Time and Distance" — what does it mean?

Nona Hendryx: Well, "transformation" has been a word that's been associated with me for a long time. From the first being "Transformation," the recording that I made, a single. And I performed it over the years, and it's also just been a part of my life because I've constantly been transforming myself. And it is a transformation where I'm going back to visual art, from music. But also integrating music into the visual art as well as painting and assemblage. And it fits what I'm doing. The "beautiful cruelty of time and distance" is that that is what it takes for transformation to happen

You said you were going back to the visual arts. Is that where you began?

That's the thing that I was focused on. I had no intentions of singing. 

You didn't?

No. 

Well, how did that come about?

Sarah Dash is to blame. I can blame her for that. She was a member of Labelle. But Sarah lived in the same town, in Trenton, New Jersey, where I was born and raised. Her church came to visit my church. You know, being black, you went to church. And that was the one Sunday I was actually singing a lead in the choir, and she asked me afterwards if I would join the local group called the Del Capris, which I did. I thought it'd be fun to do after school. Maybe six months later, somewhere in there, a couple things happened. A manager in Philadelphia, he put us together with Cindy Birdsong and a young lady called Patricia Holt, as we know as Patti LaBelle. And we recorded a song.

So it wasn't Patti who started the group?

No.

It was Sarah. And you.

Well, Sarah and I were in a group called Del Capris. Patti was in a group called the Ordettes with Cindy Birdsong. The two of each came together and made the Bluebelles. Song called "I Sold My Heart to the Junkman" became a hit record. And next thing, I went from being going to school in Trenton High in Trenton, New Jersey, to being on "Bandstand" in Philadelphia.

And you did not intend to be a singer?

No, I was going to go to school, go to college, to a state college because I couldn't afford to go to a real college. And hopefully become an English teacher or a history teacher. Because I still had no idea that this was going be something I was going to do.

You never took music lessons as a child?

No.

Never took piano?

No.

How did you become a songwriter?

That happened after, when we were changing from Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles to Labelle. We had met Vicki Wickham in England when we first went over in '62, '63, somewhere in there, I think.

Patti stayed in touch with her, when she was a part of a record company called Track Records that signed Jimi Hendrix, and the Who was the big act they had. They were coming over, and she said, "Well, you have to see this group called Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles." We were the Bluebelles. They came up to see us at the Apollo Theater. They came up to Harlem.

Came uptown.

Loved us. Said, "We want to sign them." Signed us, took us to London. And we were there for probably about eight months, going through a metamorphosis or a transformation into Labelle.

Was that the first transformation for you?

That was the second one for us as a group. We were the Bluebelles, and then there was a very famous French dance troop called the Bluebells. And because we were performing in Europe, we couldn't use the name. That's where we changed into Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles, right?

And the other transformation happened when Cindy Birdsong left Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles to join the Supremes to take Florence Ballard's place when Florence left the Supremes. So that was a transformation for us, and we stayed that way to become Labelle.

Certainly in terms of commercial music success, Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles, Labelle, all of the iterations of your group — the commercial success there was much greater than anything you have attained since. Do you ever look back and wonder, "Well, maybe I should have just stuck with this and did my other thing on the side"? 

No. Not at all. I rarely look backward. It's just kind of not in my DNA. What I have done, I'm really, really, really grateful to have been a part of. When Labelle broke up as a group and we went our separate ways, I recognized that I actually like asparagus. And I hadn't eaten asparagus the whole time with Labelle. Or with Patti and Sarah, because I think, as a group, we didn't like asparagus.

Who decided to break up?

Patti. Patti wanted to go on her own. 

What did you think about that at the time?

Well, it was painful. I mean, you know … 

Were you angry?

I could say angry or really disappointed. And there's a difference between disappointed and angry … Disappointed and kind of at a loss. This is what I've been for 17 years. What am I now? 

You couldn't stay together.

Well, yeah, in retrospect, I'm really, really grateful that we didn't. Because I think we would end up being a caricature of who we were. We were very dynamic, and the energy that we brought to the stage, I know we couldn't do now.

Tell me about your career as a solo musician. Your album, the first one.

That was actually very good that it happened right away. I wanted to, because I was moving the group further and further towards rock music. I think [that is] also part of why Patti needed to go, because she wanted to stay closer to R&B and traditional music that we were doing. I was let loose to become a rock 'n' roller. 

I want to get to politics via the music — "Mutatis Mutandis."

Oh, "Mutatis Mutandis," yes. 

"Making the necessary changes." What was that about?

I cannot write over time without writing about social or political, for me, human issues. There are things that we'd gone through. The change of [Barack] Obama becoming president. And what the country had become then. But there were elements that came out of that that were very negative — people showing up to some of his speeches with weapons. It sort of almost burst the boil of pressure that had been building in this country but not being spoken.

One of the songs was "Tea Party." Your lyrics — "Tea Party, the 'no' party … say they want to take their country back. They think we're gonna paint the White House black … See the bigotry that you spew … the shame you bring the red, white and blue" — how long did it take you to come up with those lyrics?

Not long. There's fertile ground, at that time especially. It was just so abrasive. The approach of the tea party, in terms of basically excluding people. Saying, "This is who we are, and you are, basically, you're not. We're right. You're wrong."

"Black on Black" — what was that about?

That was my reaction to black people killing black people. "Where did you learn that?" which is the question I ask. And "Did you learn that in your home? Did you learn that by being enslaved? Is that, is that a result of slavery?"

What was it stories of murders in the news? Or was it an event? 

That accumulation over time. I've been able to see it over time from my childhood, growing up in what was considered a ghetto. And then just observing and, for me, the pain it brings to see murder in general or crime and violence in general. Then to see, going through the civil rights movement, the change that needed to happen then, where African-Americans and other people came together to stop lynching. To stop the crimes in the South and other places. To see how the black family and black people respected themselves. Then to see what happened in, I'd say, the late '70s going into the '80s and whole idea of carrying weapons. The crack cocaine and all the things that happened in the black community that generated crime. And crime against each other. That, to me, it's very difficult for me to say, "Don't oppress me, don't kill me, don't jail me, don't …" if I am doing it to myself.

LGBT causes, which you were championing long before people knew about the LGBT movement.

Yes, there were, there weren't all those letters.

So what prompted your interest?

Well, I'm, myself, I'm bisexual. Have always been and very and open as I can be about it.

Was that a problem for you early in your career? I mean "problem" in the sense that maybe you wouldn't have gotten jobs? 

No.

No?

I mean, early in my career, nobody talked about it. We didn't have the gay movement that we had, that happened in, I think, the early '70s, late '70s, which really was a piggyback on feminism. Because groups began to speak out and gain support for themselves.

And also, being in show business, you have a certain amount of, I guess, sort of allowance for your behavior or your who you are or how you represent yourself. And so it was never a problem for me that I felt was a problem. Maybe it was a problem for some other people. My family have loved me however I've been the whole time. So I have that unconditional love. I never felt ostracized in any way. And so for me, the real need to be outspoken about it came during the AIDS crisis and having to watch and having many of my friends die from contracting HIV and died from AIDS — that being vocal, speaking up, being supportive, doing what I could to help was important. Doing benefit concerts. GMHC, which was an organization …

Gay Men's Health Crisis.

Yes. 

You still perform.

Yes, I do.

So what is it about the essence of being in a room with other people who are seeing you share your creativity? What does that do for you?

That keeps me, I think, alive and fulfilled in a way that is, is sort of like call and response. And it fulfills a part of me that is, I guess, the basic human thing of — not approval …

Is it a desire for connectedness?

No, because I can feel the spirit without another person. Not last night, night before last … I performed. One of the songs was "Winds of Change," which is a song I wrote for Winnie Mandela and Nelson Mandela. I sang this song last night with three musicians who had never played it before. And in singing the song, it always takes me to a place in my soul and in my gut that is a place of pain. A place of passion. And a place of freedom and joy.

And it seems that that goes over to the audience. And, as I'm looking in your eyes now, I need to look in someone's eyes when I'm singing, so that I know. As you said, maybe it is the connectedness. And the communication that, that we are having a conversation. I'm not just singing, I'm sharing something with you. And that's what happens, and that's what it is for me onstage. 

What would you like to be your epitaph?

My epitaph? "Here lies the first edition."

This interview has been edited and condensed.