Patti LaBelle: Nobody's fool

AN EMPTY hotel restaurant reverberates with the sound of waiters shovelling ice. In a corner, wearing black leather trousers, a zipped jacket and a black beret perched so precariously on top of her bun that you're transfixed by the owner's sense of balance, is a woman who — at the very least — has always been able to take a song and ruffle it up like a terrier wrestling with a rag.