Sarah Dash at Reno Sweeney - NY Times Review

From 9-15-77 -

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/09/15/archives/sarah-dash-scores-as-solo-singer.html?searchResultPosition=2

Sarah Dash Scores as Solo Singer

SARAH DASH, who opened two‐week run at Reno Sweeney Tuesday night, had more cause than her former colleagues to yearn for a solo career, once her former group, Labelle, broke up late last year after 16 years. Patti Labelle was the lead singer of the old group, after all, so she had had a chance to shine. And Nona Hendrvx was Labelle's sone ‘writer. But Miss Dash was just Sarah Dash. Now she's Sarah Dash, solo artist, the first of the threesome to perform as an individual in New York. [[Miss Labelle is the first off the block with a record, while Miss Hendryx is currently warming up her solo act in Europe.)

Miss Dash's opening show on Tues day had much to recommend it, although one imagines it will come more sharply into focus as she gathers experience in this new format Her offerings, accompanied by an adept five‐piece band, ranged from Labelle songs [[“You Turn Me On,” “Lady Marmalade”) to new material by others to songs by herself. Nearly all of them dealt with sex, and most of them built to raucous climaxes.

In Labelle, Miss Dash usually appeared as the quiet, sweetly feminine foil for the more exuberant Miss Labelle and the more outrageous Miss Hendryx. On Tuesday she came on like a black Joey Heatherton, or perhaps some combination of Eartha Kitt and Lola Falana. Her perilously engineered, transluscent pants suit with its extreme decolletage, her facial expressions and her heavy flirtations with men in the front tables combined with her song selection to produce a decidedly heavybreathing image. It seemed just a bit artificial, although perhaps she will grow more confident with this persona in time.

After years of hard‐shouting usage in Labelle, Miss Dash's voice can sound a little rough in ballads, which may be why she moves so quickly into emotive screaming even in songs that begin quietly. It's not a very grateful ‘sound, but it can be exciting, and it's interesting to encounter’ music this raw from a visual package of polished, supper‐club sexiness. Her best work came in a long, semi‐talking blues number, however, and as she evolves her act, one suspects it is in that direction that she could expand.
The Nay York Times/P. Gotta