20 Feet from Stardom Page #3

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.

See the way he

walks down the street

Watch the way he shuffles his feet

My, he holds his head up high

When he goes walking by

Darlene did a lot of ghosting

for records that came out

with other people's names on them.

Not just one of the crowd

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.

He's a rebel and

he'll never be any good

He's a rebel 'cause he never

ever does what he should

But just because he doesn't

do what everybody else does

That's no reason why

I can't give him all my love

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.

That's no reason why

we can't share a love

He is always good to me...

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?"

Speak, Lord

Speak to me

Oh, speak Lord

Won't you speak to me?

I just loved music, is all.

It's all I wanted to do.

I was so lost

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...

- Mm-hmm.

- ... 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.

Oh, listen

The world we know

was built on skill

That alone don't count

Ah, you know without the sweat

And toil of mind

it wouldn't be worth a dime

It goes back, like I say,

to the church call and response.

Pull a fish from the water

to the people from the water

To the river to the bank

to the happy to the sad

Through the first

through the last

There's that guy out front,

testifying,

and then there's sorta the community

behind him, you know, amen'ing.

Everybody, let's sing

Sing, sing

Well, everybody

Let's sing sing, sing, sing

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 Review.

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.

- Oh!

- Oh, no

Ike Turner saw

himself as a pimp,

and he saw his backup singers,

even his wife...

- I do what I wanna do

- ... as the women

who worked for him, his hos.

Do what you wanna

When you wanna

Now do your thing, soul sister

He made sure

that you had a certain look

and that you were able

to walk a certain way

and dance a certain way.

Now I'm gonna try

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.

Let me see you

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. "

Let me see it

Let me see you

You and I

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.

Once while traveling

Across the sky

This lovely planet

caught my eye

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?"

Until we die

We're just learning to live together

Learning to live together

Learning to live together till we die

But what I loved about

working with Joe

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