He's a rebel and he'll never ever be any good,
He's a rebel 'cause he never ever does what he should.
A couple of years later that song, with Wright's vocals, became a pop smash, reaching # 1 on the Billboard charts in the fall of 1962. Imagine Wright's surprise the first time she heard the song on the radio, when the disc jockey informed his audience that the artist was the Crystals! Wright's group was the Blossoms. That would not be the last time that Wright, whose professional name was Darlene Love, would be the victim of the unethical producer Phil Specter's shenanigans. He had used her vocals to promote a girl group in which she was not a member. Her story is one of several featured on the new documentary, 20 Feet From Stardom.
The Rolling Stones, self-described as "the world's greatest rock and roll band," has had dozens of hit singles over the fifty-plus years of their existence. Ironically, one of their biggest songs, Gimme Shelter, was never released as a single. Yet, it is still played often on classic rock stations, is a staple on the Stones' concert tours, and without fail makes every list compiled of the Stones' most important and favorite songs. Why the love? A big reason is the background vocals of Merry Clayton. Listen as she takes over the lead from Mick Jagger coming out of the guitar break. She sings with so much passion that you can hear her strained voice crack on the word "murder" the third time she sings:
Rape, murder!
A couple of years later that song, with Wright's vocals, became a pop smash, reaching # 1 on the Billboard charts in the fall of 1962. Imagine Wright's surprise the first time she heard the song on the radio, when the disc jockey informed his audience that the artist was the Crystals! Wright's group was the Blossoms. That would not be the last time that Wright, whose professional name was Darlene Love, would be the victim of the unethical producer Phil Specter's shenanigans. He had used her vocals to promote a girl group in which she was not a member. Her story is one of several featured on the new documentary, 20 Feet From Stardom.
The Rolling Stones, self-described as "the world's greatest rock and roll band," has had dozens of hit singles over the fifty-plus years of their existence. Ironically, one of their biggest songs, Gimme Shelter, was never released as a single. Yet, it is still played often on classic rock stations, is a staple on the Stones' concert tours, and without fail makes every list compiled of the Stones' most important and favorite songs. Why the love? A big reason is the background vocals of Merry Clayton. Listen as she takes over the lead from Mick Jagger coming out of the guitar break. She sings with so much passion that you can hear her strained voice crack on the word "murder" the third time she sings:
Rape, murder!
It's just a shot away,
It's just a shot away.
Clayton is also one of the interviewees in 20 Feet. Her interviews, interspersed with Jagger's reflections, are among the many highlights of the film.
Raise your hand if you've heard of Aretha Franklin. Just as I suspected, everybody. Now raise your hand if you're familiar with Tata Vega. Hmm, I don't see very many. Vega is a tremendous singer who was in demand for background vocals by a plethora of artists and producers. She has worked with Chaka Khan, Elton John, Lou Rawls, Leon Russell and Madonna, to name a few. Just like Clayton, Vega was one of the Raelettes, gorgeous background singers who were a big part of Ray Charles' recordings and concerts. Some industry insiders opined on camera that Vega's only "fault" was that she sounded astoundingly similar to Aretha, and there is only one Aretha. To be compared to Aretha, who like Vega was reared on gospel music, is the epitome of compliments.
Among the several other singers interviewed on film are: Lisa Fischer, who has been hired to furnish background vocals on every Stones tour since 1989; exotically beautiful Judith Hill, whose appearance on The Tonight Show backing up inferior (in the filmmaker's opinion) Aussie star Kylie Minogue she had hoped to pull off in anonymity; and Claudia Lennear, widely thought to be the inspiration for the Stones' classic rocker, Brown Sugar.
The movie is an educational and sociological mixture of on-camera interviews with a dozen or so background singers who got their music careers started in the sixties and seventies, plus archival footage from early concerts and television shows, and more interviews with headliners such as Bruce Springsteen, Jagger, Stevie Wonder and Sting. The film is also a fascinating study of what makes the difference between a lead singer and a background singer, and how luck, politics and, yes, talent, all come into play. All but one of the non-headliners are women, and none appears to be caucasian. Two other common threads: Virtually all of them got their start as youths by singing in church choirs, and all of them had the vocal chops to be stars in their own right had the cards fallen more favorably for them. Still, there is no bitterness, at least none captured on film by documentarian Morgan Neville. The women have loved to sing their whole lives, and the absence of fame and fortune did not change that. A poignant observation, made by Vega, is that she isn't so sure she would have been able to stay away from drugs had her career as a solo artist taken off.
One quibble is that the film editors could have done a little better job of presenting the sequence of interviews and concert footage to make things more cohesive. The movie tends to volley back and forth between "now and then," and from one singer to another and back to the first. It is not always easy to figure out which artist is on the video from forty years ago, because she bears little resemblance to how she appears in her modern day interview session. In all fairness, there are several subtitled graphics from time to time to remind us of who we are seeing and which headliners she supported with background vocals.
Seeing and posting about 20 Feet reminds me of another movie which covered similar ground, Standing In The Shadows Of Motown (2002), and which I have on my "gotta see" list. It is the story of another group of unsung musical heroes, the Funk Brothers, who were the session musicians working at Motown Records, and whose contributions to that label's large stable of hit makers was a story that demanded to be told. What a double feature Shadows and 20 Feet would make!
Clayton is also one of the interviewees in 20 Feet. Her interviews, interspersed with Jagger's reflections, are among the many highlights of the film.
Raise your hand if you've heard of Aretha Franklin. Just as I suspected, everybody. Now raise your hand if you're familiar with Tata Vega. Hmm, I don't see very many. Vega is a tremendous singer who was in demand for background vocals by a plethora of artists and producers. She has worked with Chaka Khan, Elton John, Lou Rawls, Leon Russell and Madonna, to name a few. Just like Clayton, Vega was one of the Raelettes, gorgeous background singers who were a big part of Ray Charles' recordings and concerts. Some industry insiders opined on camera that Vega's only "fault" was that she sounded astoundingly similar to Aretha, and there is only one Aretha. To be compared to Aretha, who like Vega was reared on gospel music, is the epitome of compliments.
Among the several other singers interviewed on film are: Lisa Fischer, who has been hired to furnish background vocals on every Stones tour since 1989; exotically beautiful Judith Hill, whose appearance on The Tonight Show backing up inferior (in the filmmaker's opinion) Aussie star Kylie Minogue she had hoped to pull off in anonymity; and Claudia Lennear, widely thought to be the inspiration for the Stones' classic rocker, Brown Sugar.
The movie is an educational and sociological mixture of on-camera interviews with a dozen or so background singers who got their music careers started in the sixties and seventies, plus archival footage from early concerts and television shows, and more interviews with headliners such as Bruce Springsteen, Jagger, Stevie Wonder and Sting. The film is also a fascinating study of what makes the difference between a lead singer and a background singer, and how luck, politics and, yes, talent, all come into play. All but one of the non-headliners are women, and none appears to be caucasian. Two other common threads: Virtually all of them got their start as youths by singing in church choirs, and all of them had the vocal chops to be stars in their own right had the cards fallen more favorably for them. Still, there is no bitterness, at least none captured on film by documentarian Morgan Neville. The women have loved to sing their whole lives, and the absence of fame and fortune did not change that. A poignant observation, made by Vega, is that she isn't so sure she would have been able to stay away from drugs had her career as a solo artist taken off.
One quibble is that the film editors could have done a little better job of presenting the sequence of interviews and concert footage to make things more cohesive. The movie tends to volley back and forth between "now and then," and from one singer to another and back to the first. It is not always easy to figure out which artist is on the video from forty years ago, because she bears little resemblance to how she appears in her modern day interview session. In all fairness, there are several subtitled graphics from time to time to remind us of who we are seeing and which headliners she supported with background vocals.
Seeing and posting about 20 Feet reminds me of another movie which covered similar ground, Standing In The Shadows Of Motown (2002), and which I have on my "gotta see" list. It is the story of another group of unsung musical heroes, the Funk Brothers, who were the session musicians working at Motown Records, and whose contributions to that label's large stable of hit makers was a story that demanded to be told. What a double feature Shadows and 20 Feet would make!
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