I glanced at Harry who has been my lover on and off for ten years. He ordered drinks–and I could tell, just the way he held his glass that he had a drinking problem. People my age listen to new age nursery rhymes–and I was brought up on Mozart and Charlie Parker–Chet Baker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Ian and Sylvia and Phil Ochs, The Beatles and Noel Coward. I am used to this, men are attracted because I am young.
I was wearing black lace, my hair was twisted into a long full braid, and there he was–tall, blonde, asking me to have a drink with him. My dad at the piano–I call him daddy–” and then I stepped down.
“Harry on trombone, Robert on bass–bass players are all crazy,” a chuckle–“and Sammy on drums. I was just finishing up a set–had sung, “Here’s That Rainy Day,” and introduced the band. We met at a nightclub where I was singing. And he brings The New Yorker with the name and the address label torn off. Her name is on the checks, right underneath his.
She could be made into a movie for cable, it’s astonishing. His wife never died in six months, five years ago. In bed he calls me honey, and darling and he tells me how much he loves me. Occasionally I get out my old photographs. I obey, sometimes I cry, and occasionally I look up at myself in the mirror in disbelief at the woman whose mouth is painted scarlet, the dark mascara. I wear black stockings with seams up the back when it gets dark and we go out for dinner.
And she stole the show at the 2014 Academy Awards, receiving a standing ovation after showing off her pipes.I am a kept woman. Love’s story as a backup singer was at the center of the Oscar-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom. “Luther was the greatest,” she says, “because he started out in the business as a background singer, so his sessions were always so much fun.” Luther Vandross was the last person Love ever sang background for and, according to her, was the only person that was serious about background singers. “Power of Love (Love Power),” Luther Vandross (1991) Come on, let’s sing it,’ and we’d go off in the corner to sing it.” She sang backup on his historic NBC special with the Blossoms and remembers, “Whenever we had a break, he would go, ‘Darlene! Do you know this one?’ He’d go get his guitar, and I’d say, ‘Yeah. “If I Can Dream” ranks as Love’s all-time favorite Elvis song. In 2015, she joined an all-star tribute to the singer to promote epilepsy awareness. With the Blossoms, Love contributed backing vocals behind many of the biggest stars of the 1960s, among them Marvin Gaye. Here’s a look back at some milestones.ĭarlene Love caught the ear of producer Phil Spector and went on to sing backup (and uncredited lead) on the most well-known “girl group” songs to come out of his hit factory.Īlong with Love, Phil Spector invited a pre-famous Cher, Sonny Bono, Bobby Sheen, and Nino Tempo to participate in the backup vocal sessions for the hit “Be My Baby.” It was the first Ronettes song produced by Spector and it exemplifies his “Wall of Sound” production technique, where he layered lots of instruments and used echo effects. Rolling Stone proclaimed Darlene Love “one of the greatest singers of all time,” while the New York Times declared that her “thunderbolt voice is as embedded in the history of rock and roll as Eric Clapton’s guitar or Bob Dylan’s lyrics.” But if Love’s name doesn’t quite have the familiar ring of Clapton’s and Dylan’s, it’s because she worked for so many years in relative anonymity in the recording studio backing up others-and in the process becoming the most successful unknown singer in rock-and-roll history.