WFC Founder Glenn Lane and Lisa recently spent an enjoyable evening at a Darlene Love concert at Tarrytown Music Hall. Ms. Love is 81, and her December 2022 tour includes eight concerts in five states, from New York to Illinois. That got Glenn to reflect on how many septuagenarian and octogenarian music stars are still actively plying their trade and can “hit the high notes,” to boot.
See our blog on aging performers:
https://westchesterfam.wpenginepowered.com/and-the-band-played-on/
Darlene Wright was the daughter of a Pentecostal preacher who, at age sixteen, began singing in the church’s choir in Los Angeles. She caught the ear of producer Phill Spector in1962 who renamed her Darlene Love and began recording as a backup singer with stars of his famous music factory. Along with Ms. Love, Phil Spector invited (an unknown) Cher and Sonny Bono, among others, to sing backup vocals for what would become the mega-hit “Be My Baby.”
Look for the only African-American backup singer on the risers in this recording of the song by the Ronettes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhzZIXvspI4
Her first hit as lead singer of the Blossoms was “He’s a Rebel”:
With the Blossoms, Love contributed backup vocals behind many of the biggest music
legends of the 1960’s, among them Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Dionne Warwick, the Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones and Sonny & Cher.
-photo credit: Stanford Live, January 2018
The 2013 Oscar-winning documentary, Twenty Feet from Stardom, profiles backup singers and features Darlene Love. Click on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWyUJcA8Zfo
Ms. Love recalls being starstruck when asked to sing background vocals with The Blossoms on Elvis Presley’s gospel song, Where No One Stand Alone. She recounts:
“He was the finest man I’d ever seen. He was gorgeous. I met him in 1968 before the drugs, before he had put on weight. It was amazing … never did I dream I’d actually be working with Elvis and singing Gospel with him!”
Being a backup singer came with financial difficulties. In NPR’s Ask Me Another podcast, she described her lawsuit with Phil Spector for not getting paid $3,000 on her non-credited lead vocals in He’s a Rebel. She won and has received yearly royalties to this day. Click on:
In that same Ask Me Another NPR podcast, Darlene Love reveals that she wasn’t too proud to take a job cleaning houses to make ends meet. In 1982, while cleaning a Beverly Hills home, she heard herself singing on the original 1963 recording of Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector.
Just then, she decided to quit The Blossoms, move to New York City, and start her career as a solo artist.
A few years into her solo act, Paul Schaffer heard her singing at a downtown club and urged David Letterman to feature Darlene Love for the Late Night with David Letterman Christmas Show. That was in 1986 when Dave dubbed Darlene the “Christmas Queen.”
She was brought her back every year for twenty-nine years to sing Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) until the end of Late Night with David Letterman in 2015.
Click to see a compilation of her appearances on Late Night with David Letterman:
https://twitter.com/Letterman/status/1606697557454831616
-photo: darleneloveworld.com
To date, Darlene Love has recorded forty-seven hits songs and, at 81, shows no signs of slowing down.
For her complete catalog, click here:
https://www.google.com/search?q=darlene+love+famous+songs&rlz=1C5CHFA_enPA927PA930&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Ms. Love is ranked among Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Singers and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011. Love is featured in the Oscar-winning documentary film 20 Feet from Stardom (2013), for which she won a Grammy Award.
And she still puts on quite a show, according to Glenn Lane. That’s genuinely active aging!
“My life has been all about trying to make a success of the gift that I have. There’s a whole world out there that wants to hear me sing.”
-Darlene Love, Ask Me Another NPR podcast (July 13, 2018)
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