Barry Avrich's film tells Darlene Love's extraordinary story and pays tribute to her soul-stirring talent. Darlene Love recorded her most defining songs in the early ’60s, when she was part of the Phil Spector hit factory. She led a group called the Blossoms, who Spector recruited, in 1962, to sing “He’s a Rebel,” the track that became the prototype for the Wall of Sound.
The song was supposed to have been sung by the Crystals, but they were 3,000 miles away in New York, and Spector, eager to rush the song into production, figured it didn’t matter — he could just credit the Crystals (which he did), and no one would know. Darlene Love sings “He’s a Rebel” with a saucy majesty that builds in power, until it becomes almost lordly in its reverence-for-the-bad-boy. (It’s no accident that Kenneth Anger, in “Scorpio Rising,” transposed the song so that she was singing about Jesus.) Her voice is as big as the Wall of Sound she helped to create. She sang lead on another Crystals track, “He’s Sure the Boy I Love,” did the background vocals on many other Spector songs — and, in 1963, sang “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” the greatest pop-music Christmas song ever recorded.
She was credited on that one, but “The Phil Spector Christmas Album” had the misfortune to be released on Nov. 22, 1963, the day JFK was shot. The record fizzled; after a few weeks, Spector suppressed any further distribution of it. The album was essentially lost (until it was reissued by Apple Records in 1972).
So even though Darlene Love had been billed on the album’s greatest track, her name remained lost as well. Thirteen years ago, Morgan Neville’s documentary “20 Feet from Stardom” paid tribute to rock ‘n’ roll’s most fabled back-up singers (the majority of whom were Black), and to how they spent their careers standing in the shadows. Darlene Love was one of those singers, and she featured prominently in the film; when it won the Oscar for best documentary, it was Love who stood up at the Academy Awards and gave an indelible speech.
Darlene Love, however, has lived a special, heightened version of that conundrum. She hovered in the background, not getting the recognition she deserved. At the same time, she was a star.
Not a maximal one, but if being a true pop singer means singing lead on some of the most magical recordings of the 20th century, Love did that. She was out there in front, spearheading the sound. It was her name that was erased, so in a strange way her identity got erased too.
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