There Goes Gravity

Lisa Robinson has been on Led Zeppelin's private plane, in Mick Jagger's hotel room, had Lou Reed hanging out in her apartment and had Lady Gaga cook pasta. She went to CBGB's and Max's Kansas City nearly every night. She's interviewed John Lennon, Michael Jackson, and Bono. She currently writes a column for Vanity Fair and oversees the photo shoot for Vanity Fair's annual music issue. She's written about music for over 40 years and has just written There Goes Gravity:  A Life In Rock and Roll. I read good reviews of it and decided to give it a try and wasn't disappointed.  

Robinson starts off in 1975 with her joining the Rolling Stones' tour of the U.S and ends with her getting to know Eminem. Reading the book is like taking a historical tour of popular music. I'll be honest here and admit I skipped ahead a bit (although I went back and read the whole book) to the chapter on U2, my favorite band. As she does in the rest of the book, she pulls no punches and offers up what I think are valid criticisms of my "boys". (So, yeah, WHEN is that new album coming out again? Or as she says, "The more successful bands become the longer it takes between albums.") She also offers some very pointed criticism of Madonna (no real talent, only ambition.)

A Mystery Solved: 20 Feet From Stardom

"There's some band, the Rolling somebodies or other and they need someone to come down and sing..." So begins the end of a mystery I've wondered about for years. I've always loooved the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter", most especially the female vocal that belts out the line, "Rape, murder....it's just a shot away." I always wanted to be her and wondered who she was. That VOICE belongs to a woman named Merry Clayton, who also sang backup with Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, The Bee Gees and many others. My favorite part of 20 Feet From Stardom is where Clayton talks about being called in the middle of the night to sing backup on "Gimme Shelter". Clayton, who was pregnant at the time, goes down to the studio in her nightgown, hair in curlers and sings it out of the ballpark. The film isolates her vocal track on "Gimme Shelter" and shows both Clayton and Mick Jagger listening to it all these years after it was recorded and let me tell you, it isn't spine tingling....it's bone chilling. I so wish I could include the audio clip here, but if you're interested you can look it up on YouTube.

Clatyon released several solo albums (which are available on our download site, Freegal) but never achieved success as a solo singer. Her eyes well up with tears as she says she thought if she wanted it bad enough and worked hard enough she would be a star. Several others interviewed in the film also express surprise and dismay that Clayton never became a big star.

Merry Clayton is my favorite part of the film, but I don't want to give short shrift to the other women who are featured in the film, especially Darlene Love and Lisa Fischer (who now tours with the Stones, singing Clayton's parts). I suspect most of you are somewhat aware of Darlene Love's story; signed by Phil Spector, he was more than happy to use Love's voice on all sorts of songs but she was never given full credit, her voice often being labeled as someone else's. Love became so frustrated she quit singing for nearly twenty years and ended up cleaning houses to support herself and then slowly got back to to singing, with early support being given to her by David Letterman and Bruce Springsteen.

I found Lisa Fischer's story quite fascinating. Singing since she was a child, she became a backup singer for Luther Vandross (who himself started out as a backup singer for David Bowie!). She ended up recording a solo album and won a Grammy but decided that being a solo artist wasn't quite her thing. There's a clip in the film of her singing with Sting and it's mind blowing. Chris Botti refers to her as a "freak of nature". Her voice is amazing.

I would encourage you to watch the bonus material on the dvd as well. There's a great interview with Clayton, Fischer and Love that shows just how small the "backup singer" community is.

This film won the Oscar for best documentary in 2014 and it's easy to see and hear why.

Until next time...
GingerMusicKid

Everyday Should Be Halloween

 I love Halloween, horror films, and all sorts of music. They go so well together. To get in the mood for the upcoming month of Halloween, I will share my annual October custom of listening to music that correlates to Halloween, the macabre, the occult, ghosts, vampires, witches, the undead and downright spooky stuff.