After
Labelle's breakup in early 1977,
Patti LaBelle,
Nona Hendryx, and
Sarah Dash took very different paths as solo artists.
LaBelle became a middle of the road urban/adult contemporary superstar,
Dash recorded the occasional R&B album with little commercial success, and
Hendryx favored rock-minded albums that came the closest to
Labelle's free-spirited wildness.
Hendryx's solo career started out on a hard rock note with her self-titled debut album of 1977, but she took a more new wave-influenced turn in the '80s, and 1985's
The Heat brings together rock and synth funk with memorable results.
The Heat is quite a contrast to the solo albums that
Patti LaBelle was offering in the mid-'80s;
LaBelle and
Hendryx both had crossover appeal, but while
LaBelle was going after a combination of urban and adult contemporary fans,
Hendryx was going after a combination of pop/rock, new wave/ and urban fans.
The Heat, for all its funkiness, proved to be too rock-minded for R&B stations; regardless,
Hendryx has a lot of fun on infectious offerings such as "A Girl Like That," "Rock This House," "I Need Love," and "Revolutionary Dance."
Hendryx wrote or co-wrote everything on this album, including "If Looks Could Kill (D.O.A.)," which should not be confused with the song that both
Heart and dance-pop singer
Pamala Stanley recorded in the mid-'80s. The producers on
The Heat include
Hendryx,
Arthur Baker, and the late
Bernard Edwards, who co-led
Chic with
Nile Rodgers in the late '70s and early '80s.
Edwards, like
Rodgers, broadened his horizons considerably as a producer in the '80s; many of the albums
Edwards worked on after
Chic's breakup didn't sound anything like
Chic, and that is certainly true of
The Heat (which is a long way from
Chic's influential disco-funk). Originally released on LP by RCA,
The Heat was reissued as a 67-minute CD by Funky Town Grooves in 2011. And the Brooklyn-based label added three bonus tracks, including an extended version of "I Need Love" and a club mix of "If Looks Could Kill (D.O.A.)."
The Heat is an exciting document of Hendryx in the mid-'80s. ~ Alex Henderson