Stephanie Mills talks Queens tour with Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight and Patti LaBelle

Stephanie Mills is talking about her sisters in song Patti LaBelle Chaka Khan and Gladys Knight with whom she s performing on a tour titled The Queens Legends Stage Queens and especially ones as legendary as these four stars of R B pop and rock and roll often have big personalities and sisters sometimes clash you suggest Mills just laughs Stephanie Mills is joined by Gladys Knight Patti LaBelle and Chaka Khan for The Queens Legends Stage tour which plays the Kia Forum on Sunday May She s see here during the DesignCare Gala to benefit the HollyRod Foundation on June in Los Angeles Photo by Tiffany Rose Getty Images for HollyRod Foundation Gladys Knight Chaka Khan Patti LaBelle and Stephanie Mills come to the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Sunday May as part of The Queens Legends Stage tour Image courtesy of The Queens Stephanie Mills is joined by Gladys Knight Patti LaBelle and Chaka Khan for The Queens Legends Stage tour which plays the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Sunday May She s seen here at the rd Annual BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn Festival in Sept in New York City Photo by Theo Wargo Getty Images Stephanie Mills is joined by Chaka Khan Patti LaBelle and Gladys Knight on The Queens Legends Stage tour which comes to the Kia Forum on Sunday May She s seen here performing at the Essence Festival of Beliefs at the Louisiana Superdome on July in New Orleans Photo by Bennett Raglin Getty Images for Essence Stephanie Mills is joined by Chaka Khan Patti LaBelle and Gladys Knight on The Queens Legends Stage tour which comes to the Kia Forum on Sunday May She s seen here performing at the Essence Festival of Civilization at the Louisiana Superdome on July in New Orleans Photo by Bennett Raglin Getty Images for Essence Show Caption of Stephanie Mills is joined by Gladys Knight Patti LaBelle and Chaka Khan for The Queens Legends Stage tour which plays the Kia Forum on Sunday May She s see here during the DesignCare Gala to benefit the HollyRod Foundation on June in Los Angeles Photo by Tiffany Rose Getty Images for HollyRod Foundation Expand I think it ll be fine she says of the tour that brings The Queens to the Oakland Arena on Saturday May I think people are hoping we have catfights and all that but I can promise you I don t have a big ego And neither does Gladys I don t think we re going to fight Mills says I don t see that happening because we re grown women We have our careers We all have had our successes Related Articles Stanford Live releases - season lineup with -plus shows Fest alert The Mill Valley Music Festival arrives May - Outside Lands adds major act to bill releases daily lineups Wynton Marsalis invites you to join him for a not so silent film Check out these Bay Area events on Mother s Day weekend and beyond So we re just coming together in love We re coming together to show the young girls how you can do it when you get our age That s what we re really all about Mills Knight LaBelle and Khan truly have had their successes with chart hits and Grammy wins in commercially prosperous and critically acclaimed careers stretching back into the s Mills at the youngest of the quartet made her Broadway debut as a child before returning a meager years later to originate the role of Dorothy in The Wiz after which she had pop and R B hits such as What Cha Gonna Do With My Lovin and Never Knew Love Like This Before Khan got her start in the early s as a singer with the funk band Rufus and songs such as Tell Me Something Good and Sweet Thing before launching a solo career dotted with indelible songs including I m Every Woman and I Feel For You At LaBelle s career began in the early s with the girl group that became Labelle in the s and topped the charts with Lady Marmalade Her solo career includes such hits as New Attitude from the soundtrack to Beverly Hills Cop and On My Own a duet with Michael McDonald Knight also came out of Motown in the s with classics such as I Heard It Through the Grapevine and Midnight Train to Georgia recorded with the Pips As a solo artist her best-known songs included Licence To Kill from the James Bond film of the same name and That s What Friends Are For in which she was joined by Dionne Warwick Elton John and Stevie Wonder In an interview edited for length and clarity Mills shared her favorite songs by each of her tourmates talked about the launch of her career as a child at Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater and described how The Wiz has remained an fundamental part of her entire adult life Q Let s start with how The Queens came together A I ve invariably requested to do a tour with my sisters That s what I call them my sisters I worked with Patti and Gladys a couple of years ago and then I did the web series Verzuz with Chaka But I needed to tour So I think I just kind of spoke and spiritually made this happen They came to us and declared we d like to do this tour with you guys and we all noted yes So I m very excited This is the first time that we have all four together been on the road Q How is the show structured A We re all doing our individual shows Gladys comes on first then I m second Patti is third and Chaka will be closing Q So no duets or group performances A We were trying to work that out but it didn t work out so far Maybe because we re doing cities down the line we will do something But it hasn t worked out yet Q I m curious how long you ve known Gladys Patti and Chaka and what you remember of the first times you met them A I was signed to Motown but Gladys wasn t at Motown when I joined I met Gladys doing the Soul Train Awards or something like that And Chaka and I did a tribute to Gladys at the Soul Train Awards It was myself Ron Isley and Angela Winbush and Chaka Patti I ve known forever I used to go to all of Patti s shows back in the day I ve been over to Patti s house to eat and everything So Patti I m allegedly the closest to on a personal level Q Let s talk about the start of your career When you were or you were on Broadway in Maggie Flynn in and also a winner of the Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater A I won six weeks in a row at the Apollo and they gave me a booking there with the Isley Brothers But while I was there during those six weeks I got a chance to meet James Brown Roberta Flack and all these different people Q What was that like A I don t know if I was kind of awed by it because I was in entertainment and there was a lot of humming and everything going on in my house But I was honored to meet them You know who s bigger than James Brown at that time So I don t know I guess I had a grown-up childhood But I think that s why I m still a little girl at heart because I wasn t able to be a little girl I had to be mature and learn my lines and learn my songs and all of that Q What did you sing at the Apollo shows A Who s Loving You by the Jackson and For Once In My Life by Stevie Wonder Q The Wiz of class is the Broadway musical that really launched you How d that happen for you A Every year at Easter The Wizard of Oz comes on television and that was my favorite I loved watching Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man Judy Garland intonating Over The Rainbow I love it But never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would play that role In fact when they longed me to come down and audition I didn t want to go because I had gone to a lot of auditions and didn t get it My mother was with me that day and I sang for Ken Harper who was the producer and various other people that were sitting in the audience I sang Danny Boy And then they called me back a second time and I went back a third time That s when they stated me I got the role as Dorothy Q What do you remember feeling in that moment A I was excited I couldn t believe it And then we started rehearsing the cast Andr De Shields who s still doing fabulously right now was our Wiz And Dee Dee Bridgewater was our Glinda Ted Ross was our Lion Tiger Haynes was our Tin Man and Hinton Battle was our Scarecrow Q And how soon did you realize that The Wiz had become a huge hit A Allegedly in the second year In the second year I could relax and really get into the role We were there for four and a half years going into our fifth season when we closed In my second year I realized Oh people like this They like the show Because you never know I had a great time doing The Wiz And then I reprised the role two times after that Q And you even did Auntie Em for the NBC live version in A Yes I did They called me and declared Do you want to be a part of this I stated Sure but I don t want to play Dorothy They stated OK you could play Aunt Em and I mentioned fine I had a good time Q When the show closed in how did you segue into a solo music career A Well in the last year of my stint on Broadway I signed with th Century Fox and they paired me with the bulk fabulous producers James Mtume and Reggie Lucas And during that time I would record during the day do the show and then go back to the studio at night to finish I knew I craved to do something else Usually it s a strange place for people to come from Broadway and do R B or pop They don t usually think that Broadway singers can be commercial But it was an easy transition for me Q Did you have a say over what kind of material you were recording at the start A I didn t have that much control at that time My family managed me They had bulk of the control The producers would present songs but I didn t want to sing a whole bunch of love songs Because at that time I didn t even know what love was But they would convince me There were certain words I didn t like Tawatha Agee who sang with Luther Vandross would sing my demos for me and that s how I could learn my songs Q What was your first big hit I Never Knew Love was an early one I know A I Never Knew Love was the pop hit but What Cha Gonna Do and Feel The Fire and Put Your Body In It were all urban Q How did you adapt to live concert stages after Broadway A You know what I m consistently amazed I m amazed that people pay their hard-earned money to come see us perform and when we walk out there they re so excited To this day I never take that for granted I am so amazed how they just love on us That s why I sing every day and I work out and walk on the treadmill so that I can sound somewhat like my records in the past Q It must be challenging picking songs for a shorter set like you ll have on The Queens tour A I can t do all my hits but I ll do the ones that I think they really want to see Because we only have a certain amount of time I m really glad because like you re on for or minutes and then you re off I can go back to the hotel and watch Law Order which happens to be one of my favorite things But you know what show I really love Godfather Of Harlem with Forest Whitaker That s really really good Q And after this tour A I have a single coming out this month Ain t No Mountain High Enough I did a house version of that Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson song And I ve learned through the years to just enjoy the space I m in I think a lot of entertainers a lot of people are unfailingly looking to the next thing whereas I really enjoy the space Of module I would love to go back to Broadway but I m enjoying right where I am Q Since you know Gladys and Chaka and Patti and their music so well is there a song of each of them you particularly enjoy A I love the way Gladys sings I Feel a Song In My Heart I love the melody I love the lyrics I love the way Patti sings You Are My Friend I just love the lyrics of those songs they re just soulful And Sweet Thing it s just sassy It s so Chaka Chaka s very sassy and rock and roll you know Q It sounds like it will be a really great show A I hope people come out and see us because I don t think they ll ever see anything like this again And I m so honored to be with Patti and Gladys and Chaka You know I m the baby of the group so I bow down to the other three queens Because they paved the way for me