I have to confess that I come from a musical family – well, surely you have heard of OLIVER, ‘got to pick a pocket or two’ and all that. Well, not that one, but my brother was a bass player in a support band that toured the world. He was living the dream, whereas I prefer to live the scarf, or at least make it do stuff. My brother could tell some stories – just not to me. But I felt like I knew the world of the backing singer as depicted in Morgan Neville’s Academy Award winning documentary, 20 FEET FROM STARDOM, which curiously, I watched at 30,000 feet on a Transatlantic flight to New York on a nine inch screen. Too many numbers!
Although SPINAL TAP might make you think differently, backing singers are more replaceable than drummers, though some artists have their favourites. Typically female, they are hired to re-state the band or singer’s sex appeal and to dare him or her to reach higher notes. They are the glamour, the undertone and the fancy dance moves. They are Pepsi and Shirley and probably married with kids by now. Backing singers worked in threes or fours and, in the 1960s, had ‘ette’ at the end of their name: the ‘Ronettes’, the ‘Ikettes’ and Bette Midler’s own ‘Harlettes’. Alternatively, they ended in ‘elle’; let’s face it, we all end in ‘ell.
Arguably, Destiny’s Child is two backing singers plus Beyonce Knowles, but don’t tell Kelly Rowland. Bananarama is three backing singers. Victoria Beckham (nee Addams) was a backing singer who couldn’t actually sing really well.
The majority of backing singers in Neville’s documentary are African American women and they have powerful voices that stop buses and make supervisors come running. They are women like Darlene Love. They could be mistaken from the band’s harem but they were better than that. Someone even looked after their wardrobe for them which is saying something.
Now being a backing singer means that you don’t get to do many interviews, though you are there for the photo shoot. You record with the band and tour with them but you don’t get many royalties unless specifically named. If you fall out of favour, no one comes looking for you. You might end up cleaning houses, appearing as Danny Glover’s wife in the LETHAL WEAPON series or performing the Christmas song on LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN every year for over a decade.
The thing about being a backing singer that is most frustrating is that you can know that you are as good as or better than the star. You want to record songs too. The tragedy is that record companies lose confidence or producers who know you well can be too demanding (step forward Phil Spector). Or you can be on a tour and see the pressure that the star is under and think, ‘I don’t want that’.
Some backing singers are lucky touchstones; performers hire them again and again, as in the case of Sting. If you think that an African American cannot sing about shipbuilding on the Tyne and ‘cool minin’ you are wrong; I just didn’t hear it here. The pay for backing singers isn’t good and you have to support one another when times get tough.
20 FEET FROM STARDOM won the Oscar precisely because it had a relatable, charismatic storyteller in Darlene Love at its centre; why wouldn’t Neville let her play music in her car (‘copyright issues, Darlene, gotta keep the bill down’). When she gets the recognition due at the end of the movie, you are uplifted, except I was already in the air; any higher and I’d need an oxygen mask. It isn’t the sort of film you can best enjoy on a plane, but you can lap it up in a movie theatre, where you can despise Phil Spector all over. If that isn’t the essence of entertainment – wait, the pilot has illuminated the ‘fasten seat belt’ sign. Isn’t he meant to be flying the plane?
20 FEET FROM STARDOM opens in UK cinemas on 28 March 2014; reviewed on United 28 LHR to Newark, Friday 28 February 2014
