My Name Is Love: The Darlene Love Story

FROM OUR EDITORS

Few performers in rock 'n' roll have been been at once as influential and successful and as anonymous and undercredited as Darlene Love. Love's was the often uncredited voice heard on any number of producer Phil Spector's biggest hits, and she also sang backup for such giants as Sam Cooke, Elvis Presley, and Dionne Warwick. Finally, in 1998, Love received a long-overdue nomination for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and published her autobiography, My Name Is Love.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

It has been nearly 40 years since Darlene Love's last number one single, almost as long since she poured her soul into Phil Spector's teenage symphonies, and about three decades since she last spoke to the legendary producer. And though Darlene Love's name is on this year's ballot for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, when she is recognized in the supermarket these days, it's not as the singer of "He's a Rebel": "Excuse me," someone will usually ask. "Aren't you Danny Glover's wife?" "No," she'll answer with customary grace. "I just play her in the movies."

But to the more than 300 faithful who recently packed the Barnes & Noble superstore in Manhattan's Union Square, Darlene Love is what rock 'n' roll sounds like. Her voice has graced hundreds of recordings, whether singing backup with everyone from Sam Cooke to Elvis Presley and Dionne Warwick or lead under a pseudonym that some producer thought might help sell a few more records. The occasion was a book signing, for which Love enlisted a seven-piece band. After decades as a pop-music pawn, as the most famous backup singer in the history of rock 'n' roll, Darlene Love is ready to be the center of attention. Rather than read from her autobiography, My Name Is Love, Love slipped the microphone out of its stand, cocked a glance at the drummer, and launched into "He's a Rebel." And for a moment, all was right with the world -- rock 'n' roll had entered its golden age, Kennedy was still our president, and Darlene Love was at the top of the charts. And then in the middle of "He's Sure the Boy I Love," the PA system died.

If you're looking for a metaphor for Love's career, that might just be it. The talent is there, the world is waiting, and then something goes awry. "He's Sure the Boy I Love," for example, should have put Darlene Love and the Blossoms on a plane with Diana Ross and the Supremes. Except when the single came out, it was credited to the Crystals, a girl group Phil Spector had worked with in New York.

This would be the first of a string of disappointments in a promising career; Love was nearly always next in line, it seemed, when the well ran dry. All of which gives her biography a humble and bittersweet tone that isn't usually found in celebrity memoirs.

Written with Rob Hoerburger, an editor at The New York Times Magazine My Name Is Love, is frank, wry, and always disarming. Love begins with her mother's botched attempt to abort her, and shares dozens of entertaining tales of her personal and professional life. (Recalling the older man who was angling to take her virginity when she was 14, Love leavens the tense situation. "I looked at his naked lower half and screamed," she writes. "Lord, there was a lot of him there.") Love's story is the history of rock 'n' roll as witnessed by a foot soldier, for even when her solo career stalled, her work in the chorus kept her in some pretty heady company. "When you're a singer on the side," Love writes, "sometimes you have the best view."

And the story isn't over yet. Love gave herself a deadline for success: the age of 60. She's 57 now, and her latest comeback is well underway. As for the bookstore gig when the PA up and died? Love gave the soundman about five minutes to rectify the situation, and when he couldn't bring it back from the dead, Love considered her options and said the hell with it. She put the mic back on the stand, cast a shrug at the keyboard player, and roared into "Today I Met the Boy I'm Gonna Marry," a 57-year-old woman wailing with abandon over a full rock band.

You've worked alongside some of the greatest talents in rock 'n' roll -- Dionne Warwick, Elvis Presley, the Righteous Brothers, Phil Spector. And you've had to stand by and watch their inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But MY NAME IS LOVE isn't the usual celebrity memoir. You're neither the hero nor the victim, really.

Darlene Love: I wanted to write an honest book. I can't believe that I am the only person on this planet who has ever gone through that. Those are things that happened in the past, things that helped me grow up. This book has a place, because there's a whole lot of women like me. We just don't know about 'em. Everybody has dreams, man.

barnesandnoble.com: But you really aren't jealous of Dionne Warwick or Cher or Ronnie Spector?

Darlene Love: Growing up in a family where your father is a pastor makes life a little different. We couldn't carry on like a normal family would, because we had to be aware of what the church people thought. They looked down on you for being successful...you know, keep yourself lowly, don't get a high head, be humble.

barnesandnoble.com: The Blossoms were a success right out of the gate. But when the work dried up, you took to cleaning houses in the Hollywood Hills. Was that humbling?

Darlene Love: Once I was cleaning this lady's bedroom, and they had the radio on. It was around the holidays. And "Christmas, Baby, Please Come Home" was on the radio. It was very weird. Those are the kind of private things that hurt you or tug at you more than anything, 'cause you can't do anything about it. Now, who's gonna believe that this lady that's cleaning my house -- there's a record on the radio, and that's her singing it? That's kind of hard to take. And then you get embarrassed. You don't want them to know that it's her cleaning lady's record that everybody's all so excited about.

barnesandnoble.com: At that point, many people would have just given up. You managed to find work on a cruise ship.

Darlene Love: I know I have a talent; I know I'm good at what I do. If I have to go to a cruise ship to get a job because the people on land wouldn't give me a job -- it was still a singing job. It ended up being one of the best jobs I ever had. I actually met my husband on that ship, and we've been married almost 15 years. You gotta take what life hands you and do something with it.

barnesandnoble.com: You seem to have a way of putting yourself in the eye of a hurricane. You were right there at the beginning of Phil Spector's string of hits. Did you have any idea how legendary those sessions would be?

Darlene Love: I really wasn't impressed with a lot of people during that time. Especially Phil Spector. When Phil Spector came around, I was making a great living as a backup singer. I was working with Lou Adler, the Mamas and the Papas. When it came to Phil Spector, to me, he was just another producer.

barnesandnoble.com: And again you found yourself at the center of history when you sang with Elvis on his '68 comeback special. There's a section in the book that involves a seduction. What exactly happened between you and Elvis?

Darlene Love: It started off as seduction; it ended up being very, very funny.

Elvis was never alone. That he was, was funny in itself. He had already done the '68 comeback special, and then we did the movie "Change of Habit." In his trailer there was always five, six, seven, nine people around him. And it just so happened that everybody left. I happened to go by his trailer, and he was in there. It was very, very weird. So I went in, and we're laughing and talking. And he's looking at me, and I'm looking at him. And I'm still a little in awe of Elvis, because I came up as an Elvis Presley fan.

We would usually be talking about gospel, but this day, we were sitting closer and closer, and he held my hand and then he looked at me and said, "You know, my grandfather would turn over in his grave if he saw me doing what I was doing right now."

I didn't take that as a put-down. I took it as him saying, "I can like black women, but they wouldn't like me to like black women."

People say, "Well, what did you say, what did you say?" Well, I didn't say nothing. We both laughed. That kind of cut the ice and let me stand up and say, "Let me get outta here." And he went his way and I went my way. And that day on the shoot we kind of laughed like it was a private joke.

barnesandnoble.com: Does it ever bother you that most people know you as Danny Glover's wife in the "Lethal Weapon" movies?

Darlene Love: I've gotten a whole new crop of fans because of the "Lethal Weapon" movies.

I tell everybody that the Lord does have a sense of humor. Who would have thought that I would end up doing "Lethal Weapon" and end up doing all four "Lethal Weapon"s, and here I am, 12 years later, and the residuals are still coming in for the first one? My royalty checks from the first "Lethal Weapon" are still as good as when the movie was made. I could have made good money from residuals from Phil Spector if he had paid me. [Beyond one-time session fees, Spector has never paid royalties to Love; he has long maintained that a singer is no more important to a song than a sax player and therefore deserves no royalties. Last year, though, a jury in New York's Rockland County disagreed with him and ordered that back royalties be paid to Love.]

barnesandnoble.com: So you took two years and interviewed your family and old friends and examined your life. How do you think you turned out?

Darlene Love: I am happy. But I had to get to that place where I can be happy. Life should just not be all about being miserable.... You can hate people, and they're not even thinking about you. You just end up hating them, getting sicker and sicker. Phil Spector couldn't have cared less if I was hating him. Why should I use all my time being mad and hateful to him when I could be doing something else? I still have the same voice, still look good. So go ahead and take the gift that God gave you -- not Phil Spector -- and go and do something with it.

Life has really been great. It didn't give me all the breaks, but eventually, things will turn around and come your way. My days of being in the background are over. Now it's time for me to be out in the spotlight -- it's time for me to get my due.

— Bill Harris is a freelance writer --barnesandnoble.com

SYNOPSIS

Few performers in rock 'n' roll have been as influential and successful and yet as unknown as Darlene Love. Love's was the often uncredited voice heard on any number of producer Phil Spector's biggest hits, and she also sang backup for such giants as Sam Cooke, Elvis Presley, and Dionne Warwick. This year has seen a long-overdue nomination for Love's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the publication of her autobiography, My Name Is Love. We spoke to Love about the ups and downs of her storied career.

FROM THE CRITICS

David Walton

[Love] still hears people outside her shows asking'Who's Darlene Love?' 'What's important now,' she says,'is that I know the answer.' —The New York Times Book Review

Publishers Weekly

After singing lead vocal on the number one single "He's a Rebel," in 1962 (recorded under the name the Crystals), 21-year-old Love hoped that her producer, Phil Spector, would nurse her talent into stardom. Unfortunately for Love, Spector believed vocals were just one more cog in his musical Wall of Sound. Although she sang classics like "Today I Met the Boy I'm Going to Marry" and "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)," by 1964 Love was well on her way to becoming "the most overqualified backup singer in the business." Hers is a sassy tale of a revered industry survivor who has watched contemporaries such as Tina, Aretha and Cher score comebacks while she sings backup for them. After 30 lucrative years literally singing in the background, she hoped for a revival of her own. Considered a relic in her 40s, she had to resort to cleaning houses to pay the rent. Cruise-ship gigs and a couple of failed musicals (Leader of the Pack and Carrie) brought her attention but no recording contract. While a comeback still eludes the singer, her story has a happy ending: in 1997, a New York jury awarded her $263,000 in back royalties from Spector. Years of touring with Dionne Warwick ("always a patsy for the tea-leaf readers of the world") and Tom Jones ("the conveyor belt [of women] to his room) offer her a cavalcade of stars to dissect, dote on or skewer in illuminating, entertaining portraits. Her sardonic observations border on the hilarious. Love is not afraid to speak her mind, and co-author Rob Hoerburger has polished those anecdotes to perfection. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct.)

Library Journal

The autobiography of a star who went from cutting hits like 'Da Doo Ron Ron' and singing backup for the stars to cleaning houses in Beverly Hills -- and then back again to concerts, Broadway, and roles in all three 'Lethal Weapon' movies.

David Walton - The New York Times Book Review

[Love] still hears people outside her shows asking, 'Who's Darlene Love?' 'What's important now,' she says,'is that I know the answer.'

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Darlene is one of the most talented artists I've ever heard! — Cher

Darlene Love remains, even after all these years, one of the greatest voices in all of pop music. The thrill of listening to her live has not diminished one iota, and whenever I get the chance to her work, I run. A great interpreter, flawless intonation, she is as musical as it gets. I love Love! — Bette Midler