The beat goes on for disco heroines Sister Sledge

Sister Sledge lost one of their members earlier in the year, but the beat goes on for the disco-era heroines who play in Ireland this week, writes Ed Power

On a cold, New York night in 1978, Kim Sledge and her sisters stood huddled at the stage door outside a Diana Ross concert. They were hoping for a few words with the goddess of disco and perhaps even an autograph. Finally the door opened. But instead of Ross, it was one of her managers popping out for a cigarette.

“We told him we were in a band but that we were thinking of quitting,” Kim recalls. “We’d been doing it for a number of years by that point. It was a wonderful career. We really liked it. Now it was perhaps time to move onto other things.”