20 Feet From Stardom《和声女神》2013
Sync & Encoded by Owen Lee
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It...it's a bit of a walk, you know,
from, you know, back by the drummer over here.
That walk to the front is...is complicated.
Singing background remains a somewhat unheralded position, you know.
So people make that leap.
So, what you guys do on that part?
It's almost more of a mental leap than...
than just the physical act of singing.
It's a conceptual leap,
and if you can comfortably come up with it, you know,
then you may find a spot out there.
But I know tremendous backup singers
who just aren't comfortable in that position.
You gotta have that narcissism, you gotta have that ego.
So shall we do it?
It can be a pretty long walk.
1 2 3 One, two, three!
There's a power to what it is that we do.
No one till right now has publicly acknowledged it,
but people love to see the background singers.
I mean, when you think about Lou Reed, "Walk On The Wild Side,"
you know, that iconic song with
the line that makes a lot of people uncomfortable
because it says "Colored girls."
But what is he... what is he referencing
when he says, "And the colored girls say do-do-do-do-do"
The fact that there's a power to these women
that stand on stage and sing with these guys.
Backup singers just bring so much more life to the situation.
When a voice opens up, there comes the life.
That's when it's a person-to-person connection.
You don't hold on necessarily to your individual vocal persona.
'Cause you're trying to get your persona
to blend and mesh with the other voices. That's awesome.
There's something that happens when you lock in with somebody
and all the harmonics ping, and, I mean,
if you don't like that, what do you like?
I could...I could be different people, a chameleon, you know.
It's just like you could change up. You're never bored.
I'm a part of the sisterhood. I got to earn this.
It wasn't just a dream that I had
I actually got to sing these songs and sing on key.
As a background singer, they would like you to come in,
make things sound great,
take very little credit...
and go home quickly.
Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you, Father.
God gave us the ability to create, didn't he?
- Yes, he did. - OK.
Today we're gonna pin this down to music.
I see these kids doing this slide, I said, "Oh, child."
He think he got that from, uh... James Brown.
I said, "Oh, that came from one of my pastors."
- My father was a minister. - My father was a...
- My father was a... - Pastor's daughter.
Isn't that cliche?
That's how I was actually introduced to music.
I started as a four-year-old.
All through grammar school.
You come up learning the part that your voice actually fits in.
Nobody tells you that's how singers learn how to do background.
Hallelujah, glory, glory.
Thank you, Lord.
God gave me this talent and I intend to use it.
And that's what my life has really been all about,
trying to make a success of the gift that I have.
Darlene Love is the one that's the cause of all of this.
Darlene Love and Fanita James, The Blossoms.
They were the first black background singers working in the studios.
When we first got into recordings,
it was totally white.
They were all white girls, and they were very tasteful.
They could do arm movements and they could, you know,
get in and go... go to the microphone
and come out of the microphone, but that was about it.
Because it was white singers. We call them the readers.
They couldn't do nothing
without that music sitting right in their face.
People would see us walk in.
They wondered what we were doing there.
They handed us our music
and we took it like we was pros too,
like we would really read this.
Then as you got more into the music,
people would want background singers that were free enough
to put feeling in what they were singing.
Not saying that those singers back there don't have feeling
but they were committed to what they saw on the paper.
The song that was coming from them was so raw.
That's what it... it was so raw, and so real,
that it was hard to deny it.
Now this is a surprise!
This is history.
None of us have sung together in 30, 40 years.
I was 15 when I first met them.
- Ain't that something? Fifteen. - That's not funny.
That's not funny.
But we were really white before you got in,
- and then you added it... - We had a sweet sound.
She brought guts and...
that bottom gospel thing and it made it perfect.
They made that platform theirs.
The Blossoms made it theirs,
and when they came in, every producer in California
and everywhere else, that's the sound they wanted.
That was from The Blossoms.
All you had to do is tell them in what direction you were headed,
and they took you there.
See when we had to sound white?
What was unique about The Blossoms, we could change our sound.
We worked with people from Buck Owens to James Brown.
That was perfect, without even rehearsing.
The amazing thing about Darlene and Fanita and Jean
is that they weren't afraid of anybody else that did what they did.
And if that producer asked for a particular person
that could do something, Darlene would say,
"That's not what I do, but I know a girl that can do it."
And that's how she'll get in, and that's how Merry got in.
Can you turn off the radio?
I mean, how could you not have music on,
Morgan, in the Merry Clayton car?
- I know, right? - That's just...
That's not even logical to me.
See, it's much better for us to add the music later.
I know it, but I'm just saying, Morgan, how could you...
How could you logically not have a diva have her music on?
I don't get that.
Merry Clayton was always the lead background singer,
but she was always a little set apart from that group.
I started going to summer school with Merry,
and she'd start singing down the street, and I'd go like,
"This girl is amazing."
She had no, uh, no hidden agendas about it.
She just, "That's what I do."
Ray Charles. He was the only artist
that my father would allow us to go and see,
and I'd stand at the end of the stage with my hand under my chin.
I'd say, "Mm-hmm, I could do this.
I'm gonna be a Raelette one day."
I willed myself to be a Raelette.
Now here are the Raelettes to help us from this portion on.
So I was sitting at home one day,
and I got a call from Billy Preston.
"This Bill, what are you doing?"
"Putting some clothes away."
"You gotta drop it and you have to come and sing for Ray."
And, of course, you know, I was totally full of myself by then.
I knew the whole spectrum
of what you were supposed to do as a singer.
But I didn't know anything
about being an entertainer.
He said, "Yes, you're a lead singer,
but you're singing with three other ladies, Sister Merry.
So we're gonna teach you how to sing
with three other people."
He's the minister. The Raelettes are the choir.
He brings that same church format to playing popular music.
Yet he's singing about sex.
Can you imagine "What'd I Say" that I said already,
without kind of an answer to that?
He did a song called "Together Again."
Oh, Lord, I could not find the second part.
I couldn't hear it.
I did not hit the note, he took his finger
and banged out my note on the piano,
and 5,000 people were in the audience,
five... huge show in Madison Square Garden somewhere.
Bang, bang, bang, bang. He banged out this note.
After that, I remembered everything.
I was not gonna be made to look like a fool.
A lot of background singers are just background singers.
They don't wanna do all the
drama that accompanies trying to be a solo artist.
Actually, very interesting,
if you're talking about background singers,
because Lisa made recordings as a solo artist
and she's a brilliant entertainer. She's really funny.
Sings her butt off. Could sing alone all day long,
but doesn't particularly want to.
Hola.
I don't wanna go to school.
I remember when my mom took me to kindergarten.
I told the teacher, it's like, "I wrote a song," right?
"I wanna sing it for the class."
She's like, "Oh, yay, good." I just wouldn't stop.
She had to stop me.
Now she's like, "That was fun."
Being with Lisa is really inspiring,
because she's a monster musician.
She just doesn't really talk about it.
I mean, she's as good as it gets.
Everyone knew who Lisa Fischer was.
She was the talk of the town at the time.
It was strange for me to
actually see her standing next to two other singers.
It was weird for me.
She's an incredible artist that stands in front of that room,
in front of everyone, and
demands their attention in a really graceful way.
I love melodies.
I'm... I'm in love with the...
the sound vibration and...
and what it does with other people.
It's familiar, but it's so special
and you're just so happy when you get there.
And you try to stay there for as long as you can.
She's the empress of that world,
and, you know, it might not look like she's ego'd out,
but it takes a lot of ego
to decide you're gonna take that position.
'Cause there's a lot of
background singers out there, and she's held...
She's held that fort down for a long time.
For me, singing is about a sharing.
It's never a competition. But there's this other energy sometimes
that I see going on that just makes me insane, you know.
Gee, who can I call to
introduce me to so and so and such and such,
but it just... I don't know,
something about that feels slimy to me.
I don't know why.
To me, there's no more heavenly instrument than the voice.
You can be a great player and
you can play things that really move people,
but the voice is the one thing that we all are born with.
I mean, there's so many
great singers who are such a massive presence
on so many rock records,
people that we don't necessarily know their names,
but that had a huge impact.
I remember, um, yeah, there was a Phil Spector special on.
Um, maybe '65-ish.
Hold it. Cut.
And Darlene Love and The Blossoms were doing this song
that Phil was playing piano on.
And I was like 16 maybe. It just went, like, pow!
That's what you're gonna do.
- Here we go. - Hey.
- Hi, Darlene. - Robert.
How about, uh, "Christmas Baby Please Come Home"
Phil Spector was the one that started
with the Wall of Sound. He wanted everybody to know
it was a Phil Spector session,
not a Darlene Love session or a Crystals session.
It was a Phil Spector session.
They sound so young. Well, they are.
I was 18. I am now 70.
The Spector records...
and it's funny, 'cause though that was a sound
we tried to capture ourselves for many, many years.
And did not, because we didn't realize
it was the sound of youth,
of very young people.
And here Darlene not only had
the incredible personality,
but she was a vocal powerhouse. She captures...
Whatever it is, she captures that particular sound, you know.
Amazing, isn't it?
I was talented and didn't know it.
When we went in to do "He's a Rebel" I knew it was gonna be
for a group he had in New York.
And I went, "This song ain't gonna do nothin' no way.
Let's just go in, take the money."
And it was my first lead voice.
Darlene did a lot of ghosting for records that came out
with other people's names on them.
The Crystals were out on the road with Gene Pitney,
and the record was climbing the charts, going to number one
and they had never heard the song before.
It's pretty debilitating to the spirit, I think,
to sit at home and watch the song that you sang,
and there's someone else
lip-synching and no one knows that you did it.
What hurt is when people hear it on the radio
and they go, "Wow, The Crystals. That's a great song."
And they sitting there telling me that, not knowing I did it.
After the success of "He's A Rebel,"
that's when I said, "OK...
He knows how to make hit songs,
so now I need to sign with him."
First of all he changed my name from Darlene Wright
to Darlene Love, and my first record
was supposed to be "He's Sure The Boy I Love."
So we go into the studio. I'm signed with him now.
Everything is legal. We record "He's Sure The Boy I Love,"
and I'm tootling down the street couple of months later
and I hear the disc jockey say,
"Well, the new record by The Crystals."
And I'm going, "Crystals? What'd he do?
Fly them in?" He didn't tell us.
No, it was my voice on
"He's Sure The Boy I Love." So I was really pissed.
You couldn't fit two stars in the room at the same time,
so Phil Spector really kept her in a box.
The best material that she was putting out
wasn't even coming out under her name.
What did you think after this song became a hit?
Mad.
'Cause this was a Darlene Love record.
I'm always amazed at how many backup vocalists I've heard
and I've encountered who kill me, who I hear 'em and I think,
"Man, you're as good as Chaka Khan." There's a lot of them.
You won't believe it, man. Like, um...
Tata Vega, who is an unbelievably great vocalist
and is up there with Aretha.
I mean, and... and I'm looking at that,
and I'm thinking to myself, "What're you doing?"
I just loved music, is all.
It's all I wanted to do.
I was 16 and I said, "I wanna go to California.
I don't wanna go to school.
I wanna be a famous singer. " Very selfish.
And my dad said, "All right."
You had more of a opportunity on the west coast.
You had exposure.
Us growing up here in LA...
- ...was really... - Hollywood always
right down the street.
So we had serious advantage.
Especially with the Motown people.
- With the Motown... - Yes.
- Oh, my God. - But I remember
too coming up, uh, we would do the long sessions
and we would be going home in the morning.
- That's right. - And people would be just going to work.
Oh, my gosh, Stevie Wonder. He was it for me.
Tata Vega, uh... incredible voice.
Somebody introduced me, you know, "This is Tata Vega."
"Mm-hmm. Nice to meet you." And he kept going. I went,
"OK, I gotta do something. There's a piano."
The only four little teeny chords I know.
And I heard this girl doing all these riffs and like,
I said, "Oh, my God," You know.
He came back. He said, "You sound like me."
Is that her? Is that the same person? It's like...
Yeah!
I just loved music is all.
It's all I wanted to do.
It goes back, like I say, to the church call and response.
There's that guy out front, testifying,
and then there's sorta the community behind him, you know, amen'ing.
That was sort of the backup sound
that came straight out of gospel and the church
and was secularized.
That was a sound of worldly knowledge.
Ike Turner, oh my goodness. Ike and Tina Turner.
I just... I couldn't believe
he asked me if I wanted to start working right away.
And I said, "Well, yes, of course."
But little did I know he meant that week.
I think we were the first action figures of R&B,
The Ikettes,
the Ike and Tina Turner Revue.
The girls were absolutely sensational.
Tina was a force of nature, of course,
but they were no slouches either.
They were fantastic.
It was what, Peace, love and happiness and, you know,
women burning their bras, you know, women's lib,
and the timing was just right for that way to present yourself.
Ike Turner saw himself as a pimp,
and he saw his backup singers, even his wife...
as the women who worked for him, his hos.
He made sure that you had a certain look
and that you were able to walk a certain way
and dance a certain way.
There are still artists right now
that view a backup singer as eye candy.
Personally, that's not backup singing.
That's just playing a role.
There's one artist that I've worked with.
I just get chills when I
think about how I just was so demoralized,
um, at the office. We were basically naked.
Dress code: "Make guys excite."
You know, I tried to look nice
and I tried to carry myself in a decent way,
but how it comes across, I mean,
I don't set out to say,
"I'm going to be the sex symbol tonight."
But you posed in Playboy.
There was something in Playboy, yes, there was.
The English rock scene was just a... A phenomenon.
They were trying to sound black.
Most all of them tried to sound black.
And the only way they could get that sound,
they had to use us to get that sound.
Like Led Zeppelin, for example. Robert Plant
or Joe Cocker even.
Many years ago, when I was singing with Ray,
and I saw this guy contorting in the front row of this concert.
So I'm standing like this,
and I'm telling the rest of the girls through my teeth,
"Who is that guy? What's wrong with him?"
But what I loved about working with Joe
is that he let us be ourselves.
In England, they were like, "Go for it.
Give us all you have."
That... it was the reason for the innovation of rock and roll.
He gave us free rein,
and everybody's face would light up, you know.
And somebody would start singing something,
or someone would start playing something
and everybody just...
And then when I got to A&M,
I was coming down the stairs from Lou's office.
Joe was coming on the lot from that front gate and he said,
"There she bloody is."
He said, "I want you to work on all of my records."
At any moment, you would see
James Taylor coming down the hallway,
or you'd see Carole coming out,
saying, "Come sing with me."
Let me in, honey, to my other home.
What a great studio.
Boy, did we have some times in this studio.
So it was like very late at night and I was very,
you know, a little pregnant.
Had curlers and the whole thing in my hair,
getting ready to go to bed. And we got a call
"Merry, there's a group of guys in town called Rolling...
The Rolling somebodies and they're from England,
and they need somebody that will sing with them."
They picked me up with silk pajamas on,
a mink coat, and a Chanel scarf on my head.
We said, "It'd be wonderful if a woman sang this part about,
that I'd written about rape, murder and all this.
It was in the middle of the night and we thought,
"Well, we would love to have a woman sing this part."
I didn't know her from Adam.
Then she turned up in her curlers.
She was in bed and she got outta bed.
And, you know, it was a kind of raunchy part to sing.
I said, "What?
Rape, murder? It's just a shot away?"
I started to sing: "It's just a shot away,
just a shot away" With Mick.
She sings the lyrics right along me,
and with a lot of personality,
which is what was needed.
What I liked was that she could sing. She was able to be merry.
She didn't have to bring it down.
He said, "You wanna do another one?"
I said, "Sure, I'll do another one."
I mean, she just did it, like, couple of times, you know.
So I said to myself, "Mm-hmm, I'm gonna do another
and I'm gonna blow them outta this room."
I went in again and I did that pass on the part that says,
So I had to go up another octave.
You know, you do these things
at sort of two in the morning,
and then you come in the next day and you go,
"Bloody hell, that's good."
Yeah. I don't hear a hand clap.
Everybody just tells me, "You have to bring everything down."
So when the rock and roll world came and said,
"No, we want you to sing," It saved us.
It saved us. Saved our lives.
Lisa, let's practice that. Lisa, let's do that.
Let's just... just do the coda.
So Vinnie, from the coda.
Just the coda.
During "The Hounds of Winter," I just indicated to Lisa
that she should, you know, vocalize and do something
to evoke the spirit of loneliness or whatever.
And out comes this voice, you know, amazing,
extraordinary, ghostly voice.
So every time she's performed that with me,
I've asked her to do that.
Lisa, give... you can give me more than that.
Really? OK.
Give me something to play with.
Let me reel you in.
And I'm also intensely proud of my band.
My greatest pleasure is to
stand back and let them do what they can do.
And they kick into this song called "The Hounds of Winter,"
and they go to this out vamp.
And Sting was cool enough to say, "All right, go.
Put a spotlight on her and just turn her loose."
Lisa Fischer.
That's a powerhouse voice, you know, and...
I think of her as a star.
She's a star.
She puts her whole self into it and then
there's just something totally transcendent that happens.
You're a little feather,
and somebody just said... and you just go.
You just go and you never fall.
You never hit your head. You just kinda land.
That's what it feels like to me.
The human voice is the most pure expression
coming from your own being.
There's nothing between your
soul and your ability and your body and them.
It's not being camouflaged by a trumpet or a saxophone or guitar.
It's pure, and that's why they're so sensitive about it,
because they're putting it out there.
Everything's a mess. Sorry.
Uh... everything's a mess. It's just a mess.
Uh, these are old gold albums I haven't put up yet. Um...
That's something from
Tina Turner's tour that was a gift from her.
This is, um, an old poster of Luther Vandross that I love.
I met him right after that tour.
When I auditioned for him, I walk into the room
and he's sitting around the piano and there's this, um,
container with some fried chicken in it.
I had to giggle. I was just like, "Yeah!"
And he goes...
"Sing this for me."
And I would sing something to him.
He's like, "OK, now can you give that to me with more air?"
And that was like, "More air?" I was like, "OK."
'Cause, you know, nobody
was talking about those subtleties, you know.
A lot of his approach was breath and air.
Sometimes the finesse of a note, like... No turning back
Like, the way you got off a note... Back
One, two...
I sounded just like that
yesterday when I was understudying the note.
He really did.
You know what I'm saying? I was up there.
- He was up there. - It was me and John Glenn.
After we were done singing, he says, "Well, " He says,
"If you can dance, you've got this gig."
And I was like, "Yay!" And then I was like, "Uh-oh."
Wait a minute. Oh, I've got two left feet.
He knew how to pull each gift together
and make this beautiful... piece of jewelry.
You know, when I was a kid buying records
by The Shirelles, by Aretha Franklin, by Dionne Warwick,
one of the first things that appealed to me
were the background vocals, and that remained with me.
Luther was a background singer and a jingle singer in New York.
Back in those days, Luther was very heavy
and wore three-piece suits, sweating like a pig,
singing like an angel.
Luther Vandross, when I first met Luther Vandross,
I went down to Philadelphia, David Bowie...
David Bowie invited me down, 1973, to hear...
He was recording "Young Americans."
And I had one record out and he cut a couple of my songs,
and so I was tremendously excited
and I took the bus to Philadelphia.
And I went in the studio and I met David and I met the band.
And Luther Vandross was one of the backup singers
in David... David Bowie's Young Americans band.
My God, I can trot on that.
That's cool. That's cool. OK, next one.
Gotta do it this way to get it... One, two...
Well, it was "Young Americans", it was just fabulous, you know.
And it was David Bowie's soul record, in that sense,
and he called on those voices
that were rooted in the church to bring that in,
because they bring a world with them, a world with them.
I believe that, you know, the role of the backup singer
evolves as music evolves.
Music was becoming more complicated and richer
and more interesting in the '70s,
and so the backgrounds became more sophisticated.
It just became more than vocals. It was the music.
And you find yourself singing
what the background singers sang,
as much as what the lead singer sang.
You know, when you think about the history of pop music
and all the memorable hooks that people sing along with,
they're singing with us most of the time,
because that's what we do on records.
We come in and sing the hooks.
That show was just something that was cosmic.
If you were there to experience it,
it will be something you'll take to the grave.
Claudia Lennear had that exposure,
and then the next big moment
came for her with, um, The Rolling Stones.
And Claudia Lennear, she was like the really hot one of the...
of the Ikettes, you know.
She was a really great dancer, very hot, beautiful girl.
There were a few young ladies in the background world
who were trying to get to the leading men as quickly as possible.
You know, Mick and I had a very special relationship,
and we used to have so much fun.
We used to have so much fun, just doing silly things,
dressing in each other's clothes. Just crazy, wacky stuff.
You know, Mick has his bad boy image
and David had his androgynous look,
but first and foremost, they were just all really sweet.
Well, anyway, she must have enjoyed those times,
because she looked like she was.
At that particular time, there was so much going on in the world,
with the Civil Rights Movement and the war.
Though there was so much politically going on,
you know, you're pretty insulated from it a lot of times
and you only really find it out
when you get out there on the road,
the places that you stay, the people that you talk to.
You're able to see the actual politics and the culture,
you know, what's going on in the culture.
It was weird. It was happy, musically, but it was a sad time.
One, two, three.
Turn it up.
I think Clydie King called me for that session.
She said, "There's this guy. His name is Lynyrd Skynyrd. "
I said, "Really?" She said, "Yes, and he wants to do this song
called 'Sweet Home A...'? I said, "Alabama?
Honey, nobody wants to sing anything about Alabama."
I certainly didn't wanna sing anything about Alabama.
It was a moment when this idea of black power
had a lot to do with people defining themselves
based on their own ideas, as opposed to white overseer's view
of how one should behave.
We don't give a fuck about whether or not
white people are offended. We're gonna do our thing.
My husband was 19 years older than I was.
He said, "Oh, you need to sing 'Sweet Home Alabama'."
I said, "Well, why?" He says, "You'll understand later in life."
He said, "Right now, you don't understand, Merry. You're young.
You don't... you don't really understand."
That's what we were doing, we were living.
We were living the moment, living that emotion, creating.
It was basically like a slap in the face.
A-ha, sweet home Alabama.
We got your sweet home Alabama.
But we gonna sing you anyway,
and we're gonna sing the crap out of you.
If given the opportunity,
we will demonstrate our value beyond any reasonable doubt,
so much so that going forward, when you start to define singing,
it's going to be based on this transformative sound
coming out of these backup singers' mouths.
My way of being an activist in our struggle
as a black people was to do
the music.
It's the last line.
Any song that you can name with background on it,
either I was doing it with a bunch of girls,
or either the Waters were doing it.
We always went in the studio with,
"God, we're on this song."
And we would always do our very best, like it was ours.
- Patti LaBelle. - Patti LaBelle.
- "You Are My Friend." - "You Are My Friend." -《You Are My Friend》 -《You Are My Friend》
The Bad Girls album.
That's when we really cleaned up.
- Whitney Houston. - Whitney Houston,
"The Greatest Love of All." 《The Greatest Love of All》
- All those LPs. - The Disney characters.
- Yes. - That's us on there,
the "Small World", You know. 《Small World》
- You hear all that singing. - Lion King.
Growing Pains.
The biggest selling record
in the history of records, Michael Jackson's Thriller.
And the biggest selling movie, Avatar.
It's some bird sounds and things like that.
Stuff like that,
you know, different things...
But doing this kinda just took us away
from doing our own records, you know,
and stuff like that, which we used to do.
Singing, you know, oohs and aahs and...
It's kinda fun for a minute. Uh...
I'm not sure if I'd like to do it for a living.
Phil Spector's name started getting big,
my name started getting big,
because the rock and roll people like Bruce and Elton John
and Stevie wanted to know who that girl singer was.
I mean, she without question, is a lead singer.
You started to pick up that voice
and you began to have an allegiance to that voice.
That made me wanna be out
there by myself even more as a solo artist.
I saw then I'd have to leave that group to become a solo singer.
Singing background, to me,
it was like a rehearsal for what I was gonna do for my project.
I wanted to sing as Merry Clayton,
to the masses. I wanted to get my stuff out to the masses,
and God sent me Lou Adler.
Merry consciously wanted to be a solo artist and a star.
Whenever Merry appeared,
standing ovations.
I mean, it's as if they
never had seen or heard someone like that.
When it came to my project, I was gonna kick ass and take names.
She made three really good albums.
They all sound like somebody that's as big as Aretha Franklin.
I think Lou did a great job
and A&M did a great job promoting my records here.
I think you do, number one, have to have that kill spirit,
to really want it.
Now, Merry Clayton got the kill spirit.
I don't know why she wasn't a superstar.
We did everything possible, and it just didn't take.
The industry, it was controlled.
There were rules. She was a gospel singer.
There's only one Aretha.
You know, and that's the way they felt in those days.
It could only be Aretha. Only could be Diana Ross.
Yes, I became frustrated at one time,
said, "Damn, the record didn't go any further than this?
What're we doing wrong?"
I felt like if I just gave my heart to what I was doing,
I would automatically be a star.
I think what happens with the whole issue of background
versus lead singing is, you know,
the material that you're given
and how you work with producers.
In the mid '70s, Darlene Love is finally freed
from her contract with Phil Spector.
I had signed with Gamble and Huff.
Who were, at that time, the hottest thing out there.
And I say, "OK, here's my career. It's gonna really go now."
And, uh, there was another door I ran into.
Within weeks,
they sell her contract back to Phil Spector
and the nightmare continues.
This was the new Phil Spector.
He did the Beatles thing and,
you know, he was a big star,
so now he's gonna act like a big star in front of this little star, Darlene Love,
and I wasn't having it.
It got to be so bad, I just said,
"You know what? I've had it." that's what I said to myself.
Took the earphones off my ears, put 'em in the chair
picked up my coat, put it on and walked out the studio.
I didn't see Phil Spector no more for over 20 years.
Many of these singers came out of the music business at a time
when the singer depended on a songwriter,
somebody who knew how to feature their voice,
somebody who knew how to create a hit arrangement.
Those are a lot of things to be dependent upon, you know.
And I know so many people with incredible voices,
but if you don't find someone who understands who you are,
you can be a great singer and just not... and that...
just not make that next step, you know. There's...
I mean, the country's filled with them, you know.
There's no guarantees in entertainment.
There's no... no guarantees.
I had been offered the chance to go solo several times,
and then ultimately, I ended up with Warner Brothers.
The studio was smoking.
It was just...and it was just amazing.
It was just amazing and...
And how was the record received?
Mm... not that well.
If you are out there and your name is on that doggone marquee,
the pressure is on 'em,
and sometimes that can... that can cause, uh,
problems in a person's life.
I had a contract as a solo artist
and then I was kept on, but shelved.
So I was on Motown, but not.
And it hasn't been easy.
You know, there's stuff that goes on with people.
I had a daughter to raise. I had a band to support.
I mean, it just got crazy.
The kind of feeling that you get from people screaming in the audience,
if you're always looking for that in life, you're gonna crash.
The focus wasn't on music anymore.
I had to send my daughter to live with my brother and his kids,
while I was trying to scrape things together to pay the gas bill.
I remember her putting out a record,
but then I looked up and then...
I didn't see Claudia anymore.
She said thank you and goodnight, that's what she said.
I thought people would be banging down my door for deals,
and it didn't happen like that.
"You're too fat. You're too old.
You know, you should seriously think about another career."
And after that, it's hell.
I think if I had "Made" It,
like what the world... millions of dollars, all that,
I probably wouldn't be sitting in this chair
talking to you right now,
'cause I would have OD'd somewhere.
It's not a level playing field.
It never is a level playing field,
and you come into life understanding that.
It's not about fairness.
It's not really about talent, you know.
It's... circumstance, it's luck. It's destiny.
I don't know what it is,
but the best people deal with that.
Working with Michael really did inspire me,
and saying like, "Wow, it's OK to dream this big.
It's OK to realize your dreams."
She's representational of what's happening
with background singers at this point.
I know she aspires to be a solo artist, though.
This last tour,
I heard from other friends that were with
that he just loved her
and, of course, she got the job.
You know, we were so excited for him and for us to be
able to do this show, and it was coming together.
I can't do that. But you're fine to do it.
I gotta save my voice.
And then all of a sudden,
we're on our way to rehearsal
and we get the news and it's like,
"You gotta be kidding me. Like, how's that even possible?"
It's such an overwhelming shock just to go from
almost on our way to this huge show,
to all of a sudden, he's gone.
I was crying throughout the service
and I wasn't really emotionally in a place to sing,
but, actually, it wasn't too unfamiliar to me,
because that kind of feeling and that reverence
reminded me a lot of church service,
so that's how I felt when I was there.
But, you know, I didn't really realize at the time
billions of people were watching it.
And a star is born.
Judith, thank you so much for joining us.
Just 24 hours ago,
I think you were brought to the world's attention
by doing one of Michael's most famous songs ever.
Well, what you saw...
When you're a background singer,
it is a springboard in the beginning,
but it can easily become quicksand
if that's not what you wanna do.
Ever since the Michael Jackson experience,
I've turned down almost every background singing gig,
because I knew that if I kept doing it,
then becoming an artist would become more difficult.
I think the world needs to hear her
and I didn't want her to go the way of background singing.
I put together the girls for Elton to go on tour
and they wanted Judith.
Elton loves Judith,
but I think she had to make a decision,
"Do I really wanna be a solo artist?"
And she's trying to do it, because she writes songs.
We in the music industry, especially African American people,
need to know our worth.
We need to know, as women, we're important.
And I think the breakdown is
when a woman doesn't know who she is and she settle for less.
Check out your worth,
because you're worth more than that.
I couldn't sleep.
I was getting in such a depressed state,
I called my mother and father, asked them
if they would take care of my kids.
And the most enjoyment I got back in those days
was singing in church.
That's the only place that
I was actually singing during those times.
Only thing I thought I
could do and make a little money to survive,
you know, I started cleaning houses.
Not the great Darlene Love.
She's not doing... cleaning houses.
I said, "Yes, the great Darlene Love is.
She is cleaning houses. "
One particular Christmas,
I was cleaning this lady's bathroom.
And "Christmas (baby please come home)",
my Christmas record, came on the radio
while I was cleaning this bathroom.
And I just looked up and just said, "OK, all right, Darlene,
this is not where you're supposed to be.
You're supposed to be singing.
There's a whole world out there who wants to hear you sing."
And then the move from California to New York,
my career just took off.
Nice to have you here. Everything OK with you?
- Wonderful. - Thanks for being here.
- Come and sing it next year. - Of course.
I hope you have a good holiday.
I have to plan what I'm going to do. I have to take a little job.
The bastards got my daughter.
Just so you can keep your name out there.
But if I didn't do those jobs, then nobody would really know
who Darlene Love was.
As a young person, I thought everybody could sing.
When you start getting older, then you realize,
everyone is not the same, that these are gifts,
and you have to share and go out into the world.
Oh, my girlfriend and I took these.
It was supposed to be closed. You see the zipper is broken.
I swear it was closed. It started out closed.
Here, yes. It's my Grammy.
I just kinda keep 'em here.
I don't know what to do with it.
- You're looking fantastic. - Thank you.
- I've gotta tell this story. - OK.
The first time I met you, I met Lisa,
was you were singing background on my record.
- Yes... - "I Know How To Make You," that's right.
That's right, that's right. And I have to tell you,
I mean, everyone in the industry knows Lisa Fischer.
I wasn't deep in search of a record deal.
It was just one of those things that just blossomed,
you know, and I was really fortunate.
I just... I think she is a freak of nature
that I've never seen before.
And the Grammy goes to...
Lisa Fischer, "How Can I Ease the Pain?"
I have to thank Luther Vandross.
That's the first thing I have to do.
Without him, none of this would have been possible for me.
She has her own Grammy.
She has her own recording contract with Elektra Records.
It's different when you're singing background for someone,
you know, because you're so into making them happy,
making sure that they have what they need.
But then, once you're doing your own thing,
it's like you have to try to understand what it is you need
and what's gonna make you happy.
Give it up. Lisa Fischer.
I was working on a second record and...
I don't know, it just took too long.
It took too long, and there was this window,
and it just took too long.
I just don't think anyone knew what to do with me.
I don't think I knew what to do with me.
That's something I never really understood,
just the business part of it.
It takes a tremendous amount of energy
to be a solo artist
and a tremendous amount of ego to want to do that.
And she's never had that kind of ego.
I think there is a psychology behind it.
I think most background singers will agree
that we're not really good self-promoters.
You know, the industry is for those who put themselves
on display and are willing to play the game,
and some people aren't.
In a strange way, the gulf between the lead singer
and that group of backup singers couldn't be wider.
You're going into a group format
where you sacrifice individuality
in order to arrive at that blend.
And the blend is something
that's not just infectious for the listener.
It's... it's the transformative experience for the singer.
And some people just wanna stay there.
Real musicians,
there's a spiritual component to what they do.
It's got nothing to do with worldly success.
Their music is much more of an inner journey.
Any other success is just cream on the cake.
There's this idea that you can go on American Idol
and suddenly become a star,
but you may bypass the spiritual work
that you have to do to get there,
and if you bypass that, then your success will be wafer thin.
People lose the heart of a lot of it
because they haven't grown up with, you know,
having to go through that, what I call wood shedding,
having to really say, "OK, let me focus in on...
this is what we need to do."
There's a budget right now, in every...
every recording budget that says "For tuning."
And that's, you know, how many hours are allowed for tuning.
And I said, "What's that?" "Oh, we have to tune all the vocals."
"Well, why don't they sing in tune?"
"Well, it just takes too much time and it's too hard."
And so they just sing and then they tune 'em all.
And that's ridiculous to me.
Please welcome Kylie Minogue.
Well, good evening, everyone. How you feeling?
Actually, I've gotten a lot of criticism.
I've done a couple of gigs I thought I would get,
just get away with, you know. And I even put a wig on.
I put, like, a straight-hair wig.
Like, on this Jay Leno gig,
no one's gonna know it's me.
And then I get these tweets from fans, like,
"How could you do this? You're singing in front of... behind her,
and, you know, you go from Michael to..."
And like just criticism, and I'm like,
"How did you even know that was me?"
But I'm, like, right in the transitional stage here.
I am not at a position where I can turn down everything,
because all of these things as an artist
are really expensive and my dreams are huge.
So I have been doing some background singing on the side.
With Judith, I knew that she had an incredible voice.
I know that she sang in church,
and it was a really wonderful thing
when I heard her songs.
I said, "You're gonna do something."
Stevie is very excited about me as an artist as well.
He's really shown that.
But it's just an honor to just be able to...I don't really care.
I mean, I just love singing with him regardless, you know.
As much as you're enjoying this,
don't let your dream disappear,
because you wanna be with me or be around me.
You gotta step out there and do your thing.
People singing together
has always meant to me people coming together.
What moves people is the humanness of it, not the machine.
That's not the same as someone
singing and playing to you and putting their heart into it.
And great background singers, you know, it's moving.
For a long time, I'd say a good five years,
you couldn't hear a background on a record.
You wouldn't hear anybody doing a hum or an "Ooh"
or a "La" or... or an answer line or anything.
Nothin'.
There's not as much work for background singers,
because different ones have called me over the years
and just asked me, "Are you working?
'Cause my phone hasn't been ringing."
A lot of home studios, people have their families singing,
doing all the vocal parts themselves.
It's just put a lot of singers out of work.
When you get to the '90s,
you're starting to see major structural changes.
The big recording sessions associated with the '70s and the '80s,
they're not happening anymore.
People didn't want to pay the background singer,
'cause they don't think they need it.
They were saying, "Hey, we don't have to...
We don't have to write that check,"
not realizing that was the sound.
And that's why Joe Cocker
and The Stones and Rod Stewart,
David and all of these wonderful people,
they have their singers there.
They need those background singers.
You do tend to wonder, is there a cutoff point
or is there a way to leave this occupation or this life
without dying of heartbreak or, you know, or just,
is it the biggest jones of all?
You get hooked on music, you are fucked, you know.
When you get into a relationship, you know, there's an energy.
It's like when you see a married couple walking into a room.
You see them part,
but you still feel that string that binds them.
I never really had that.
So I always felt like I belonged to everyone, you know,
a part of my heart,
a part of who I am belongs to everybody.
So, I mean, sometimes when I, you know,
talk to my friends who have children or who are married,
I think to myself,
"Hmm, maybe I should've gotten married and had some kids
and done all that kinda thing." But... I'm good.
I am so good.
Lisa is so incredibly versatile,
then you almost, you're so talented,
you almost get like option anxiety.
Well, what do I do? Should I stay with the R&B thing?
Well, R&B was so big at the time.
Then you're up against
Whitney and Mariah and blah and blah and blah.
Then, maybe I should do a little bit more of the rock thing.
And her phone rings
and it's Mick Jagger
and he says, "Join The Stones,"
and that's a hard thing to,
you know, to turn away from, you know.
That's a...
It's great to have the female voice, you know,
otherwise it's me, me, me,
me and me and then it's a bit of Keith and...
But still, you know, it's still the same kind of masculinity.
And then when you can get someone like Lisa to step out
and you've got a whole new voice out there.
It's like, I could hear how Mick was singing it
and I, you know, react to him a certain way.
Like nobody else was in the room. It was freeing in a weird way.
Why isn't she promoting herself
and why is she out with The Rolling Stones all the time?
It's because she's comfortable doing that.
She loves doing it and she's got it all to herself.
She's not stupid.
I wanna be able to walk the
streets and not have to worry about, you know,
putting on sunglasses and hiding out and, you know,
the tits up in the air and, you know... I just... I...
I'm just... I'm not feeling that. I'm just not feeling that.
Some people will do anything to be famous,
and then there are other people who just will sing.
It's not about anything except being in this special space
with people, and that is really the higher calling to me.
Seemingly, every time I get ready to do something really big,
or something really, really wonderful,
something would just happen
that would just knock me to my knees, you know.
You don't want everybody to know you got this at Pick 'n Save.
I said, "God, what is this?
Am I not supposed to be doing this?
If I'm not supposed to be doing this,
then show me I'm not supposed to be doing this,
and I won't do it, you know." But I never was shown.
- Amen. - Praise the Lord.
And I just stay cool, stay humble,
stay beautiful and just do the work.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
If somebody says, "You're gonna do this,
you're gonna become an international superstar, "
of course everyone would spend the money and do that.
But if you're living in a little place and you have no money
and you got a little bit saved and they say,
"You gotta risk all of that
and you still might be working McDonald's tomorrow,"
I think you gotta be
absolutely crazy to go after it like that, yeah.
It was just...
I came to a fork in the road and music wasn't on it.
I've been teaching Spanish for ten to 15 years.
It's always been a missing link.
It's been a regret that I didn't just hang in there,
especially when I see my
contemporaries progressing in their musical lives.
I never said it wasn't for me, never.
If I did, I was lying to myself. It's always been for me, always.
Just do it. Maybe that's one
way to get rid of that gnawing once and for all.
Let's have a warm, warm welcome for Miss Judith Hill.
There's machines that make people stars that don't have talent.
They don't really sing live.
Someone could have done that for Judith,
but I think what she has is deeper,
and maybe selling 500
million records is not the best thing for her.
It's more than just leaning on your talent.
You gotta be disciplined.
Gotta get up in the morning. You gotta go do it.
Opportunity's knocking. Open the door. Get going, kiddo.
In these times that we're living in right now,
a lot of it is based on so many other things
that have nothing to do with music.
But, you know, at the end of the day, it's up to you
to perfect that gift that you've been given.
Put your spirit into that song.
Focus on the words that you're singing.
Get into the experience of what you're singing about
and sing your heart out.
Every time you get up, you might fall down,
but you gotta get back up again, you know,
and believe me when I tell you,
it's not easy, especially at my age.
I didn't start my solo career till I was 40.
Tonight marks the 25th anniversary
of a favorite holiday tradition here at The Late Show.
Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome
the remarkable Darlene Love.
And now it is my honor and pleasure
to induct into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
and about time too, Miss Darlene Love.
Thank you, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
I am truly honored and overwhelmed.
So many of us, Merry Clayton, the Waters,
we stand on her shoulders.
My mother told this one lady,
"Oh, my daughter's in New York now. She's on Broadway."
And they go, "What daughter?" Said,
"The one that used to clean your house."
I've seen artists come and go,
and I look around on stage and it's the same players.
They're in the game, or they've stayed in the game
and they're legends and they're amazing.
Singing background, it helped me find me.
It got back to the love of music.
We have a gift. We can hear a song
and find our part and harmonize with it.
Children on the corner's doing it.
Little babies do it when they learn to sing.
It's the gift coming out.
Now, what you do with the gift is you.
Like the old days.
OK, next session.
My boy!
I've got so much love in my heart for him,
and I just don't feel like me when he's not around.
Yeah, there are boys and there are boys,
but he's a...
Darlene Love!