{"id":87812,"date":"2014-08-09T07:43:41","date_gmt":"2014-08-09T11:43:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=87812"},"modified":"2022-10-01T12:22:08","modified_gmt":"2022-10-01T16:22:08","slug":"20-feet-from-stardom-2013-directed-by-morgan-neville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=87812","title":{"rendered":"20 Feet From Stardom<\/i> (2013); directed by Morgan Neville"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"large_uaSKNeKUiyrLgDNa9azu7l5ZDaA\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nThere’s a moment in Morgan Neville’s 20 Feet From Stardom<\/i>, the fantastic Oscar-winning documentary about the world of the backup singer, that I can’t stop thinking about. Merry Clayton, a busy and hard-working backup singer, who had recorded with Ray Charles, Bobby Darin, Neil Young, was in a hotel room in Los Angeles. It was the middle of the night. She had curlers in her hair and was in her pajamas. She also was pregnant. It was 1969. And her phone rang. It was a manager or a producer, someone she worked with, telling her that the Rolling Stones were in the middle of a recording session and they needed someone immediately for a very important background vocal. The original backup singer had fallen through, and the recording session was happening right now<\/i> and could Merry come down and do the part. She thought it was crazy, but sure, she’d do it. A car came to pick her up. She wrapped a scarf around her curlers, and put on a mink coat over her pajamas. She is the definition of a diva. She walked into the studio, and there they all were, the Stones, in all their debauched genius and glory. They were working on a song called “Gimme Shelter,” and they needed her to echo Mick in the background, as well as sing straight-up with him as the song reached its climax. And the words they needed her to sing, over and over, were “Rape! Murder! It’s just a shot away, it’s just a shot away.” Merry thought to herself, “What is THIS. Rape? I’m screaming the word Rape?” It was shocking. Even in 1969 it was shocking. <\/p>\n

But she was game. Backup singers are game for anything. <\/p>\n

She could tell that the Stones liked what she was doing in her first couple of takes. So, in reminiscing, she said that she thought to herself, before the next take, “Okay. I’m gonna blow them out of this room<\/em>.” <\/p>\n

And she did. <\/p>\n

Her voice does that weird violent thing where it sounds like it almost blows itself out (at the 3:01 mark below). A famous glitch, a now-famous flaw in the fabric. The fabric is ripped to shreds and the hairs on my arms rise up in response, in alarm. <\/p>\n

Update<\/b>: My cousin Kerry alerted me to this essay, by Bill Janovitz, of Buffalo Tom, on “Gimme Shelter.” <\/a> Janovitz writes:<\/p>\n

But it is Merry who takes the solo vocal here, an absolute classic vocal performance, with an otherwordly timbre even before her voice cracks at 3:01. Everyone knows that voice crack. It sends shivers down your spine every time you hear it. But there is a little crack in the voice on the line that precedes it, at 2:58. You get the feeling that she felt it a buckle a little on that first one, and it surprised her, and she made a split-second instinctual decision to push the next line even harder, rather than retreat when she felt that crack. She almost consciously knew that by taking the chance to push it even more would result in something that would convey her emotion even more effectively. It\u2019s called soul. I am trying to define \u201csoul.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Listen to the isolated vocal track Janovitz provides. It’s terrifying. Honestly. <\/p>\n

Neville then isolated Clayton’s vocal track, during that “Rape Murder” call and response section, and we see both Clayton and Jagger listen to it. Both of them have the biggest smiles on their faces. They still feel the power of what was unleashed. Clayton sort of nods to herself, looking at the camera, like, “Yup. That’s me. Pretty good, right?” <\/p>\n

“Gimme Shelter” was not cooing “doo-wop” behind another singer. “Gimme Shelter” required something else<\/i>. <\/p>\n

Her vocals are one of the reasons why that song is such a classic. It’s impossible to picture the song without her.<\/p>\n

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