Darlene Love, the voice that Phil Spector used to launch a million teenage fantasies in the 1960s, is sitting at a table in
the back of the famed Bottom Line in Manhattan.
It was here that a Hollywood casting director first caught her act nearly a decade ago. In 1986 he asked if she wanted to play a small role as the wife of Danny Glover’s character in a big-budget shoot-’em-up called “Lethal Weapon.”
“I didn’t audition, I just sat and talked with the casting director for two hours and then he said, `The part is yours,’ and I said, `Yeah, the check’s in the mail,’ ” Love says. “Three `Lethal Weapons’ later, I finally believe him.
“But I never pursued acting. Acting pursued me. If they want to keep pursuing me, that’s fine. But my goal is to win a Grammy before this life is over.”
Even though Love is in her late 40s, she could pass for someone 10 years younger; she has three sons, 18 to 32. And the voice, though a bit lower in range, is still magnificent.
Which is why there’s a sense of unfinished business about Love’s career. That voice was once ubiquitous-what self-respecting Baby Boomer hasn’t heard “He’s a Rebel”?-but not her name or face.
All that may be slowly changing. She’s currently holding court on the Bottom Line stage in a critically acclaimed musical about her life, “Darlene Love: Portrait of a Singer,” which she hopes to take around the country and Europe.
She’s also got two albums on the market. “Bringing It Home” (Shanachie) is a benefit project for the Rhythm and Blues Foundation with session singer Lani Groves, in which Love lets loose with a gospel-drenched “Let It Be” and a paint-peeling version of the Jackson 5’s “I’ll Be There.” “The Best of Darlene Love” (Abkco) affirms that it was indeed Love’s voice on many of those Spector-era hits originally credited to the likes of the Crystals (“He’s a Rebel”) and Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans (“Zip-a-Dee Doo-Dah,” “Not Too Young to Get Married,” “Why Do Lovers Break Each Other’s Heart?”).
And in December, she led the “Home Alone II” soundtrack onto the pop album charts with the rocking “All Alone on Christmas,” recorded with Steve Van Zandt and four other original members of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.
“When that song came out, it was like, `Oh, you mean she sings too?’ ” Love says. “They forgot or they didn’t know.”
By now, however, being in the background is old hat to Love.
One of five children of a Pentecostal minister, she grew up in the Los Angeles area and, for a brief time, in Texas. In her early teens, she was singing lead for a Baptish church choir in L.A., and her voice was heard on Saturday evening radio broadcasts throughout the city.
“That’s how I met the Blossoms,” a group of session singers making a name for themselves around town, Love says. “They were in a wedding at the church, and I was going to be one of the singers in the wedding. We all knew the bride, but we didn’t know each other. When they heard me sing, they asked me to audition, even though I was only 14 at the time.”
A productive partnership
The Blossoms became the most in-demand session group on the West Coast, working on records ranging from Sam Cooke’s “Chain Gang” to Duane Eddy’s “(Dance With the) Guitar Man,” and Love’s high-voltage soprano soon caught the attention of an up-and-coming producer, Phil Spector.
At 18, Love knocked out the lead vocal for “He’s a Rebel,” which hit No. 1 on the pop charts in 1962. The Love-Spector partnership flowered for three years, including the epochal “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” in 1963, one of the three or four greatest female singing performances of the rock era.
“I didn’t feel that bad that my name wasn’t on all the records I did with him,” Love says. “I was a session singer and was used to working that way. You know the group (Milli Vanilli) that caused all that hullabaloo a few years ago when they won a Grammy even though they didn’t sing on the record? That happened all the time back in the ’60s. The Crystals didn’t sing on `He’s a Rebel’ either. But I went in with my eyes wide open. Each time I wondered, `Whose name is going to be on it this time?’ “
Love adds with a laugh, “Eventually we did compromise and he agreed to record me under my own name. But the joke is, my real name is Wright. He changed it to Love. He asked me if I liked the name Love, and I agreed. By then I’d already been Bob B. Soxx and the Crystals, so I figured why not?”
It took a singular voice not to be overwhelmed by Spector’s Wagnerian “wall of sound” productions.
“I completely put myself in his hands, and he used us-the singers-as pawns,” she says. “But he still had to take care of us because he needed our voices to make great records.
“He wanted my presence, so he didn’t do a lot of coaching, but if I was oversinging, he would make me stop because he always wanted his melody to be sung. He always used to tell us, `If the record isn’t sold in the first 16 bars, it’s not going to be sold.’ At the end of records he’d let me do my little riffs, but he wanted me exactly straight at the start.”
Spector had a reputation as a dictator, but Love says she didn’t encounter that side of the producer until the late ’60s. She had been signed to work with the legendary Philadelphia producers Gamble and Huff, but Spector bought her contract back from them. An attempted reunion with Spector in the studios ended with Love storming out, “and I never looked back,” she says. “We haven’t had any business dealings since.”
She says she’s not getting any royalties from the “Best of Darlene Love” compilation either.
“I ended up being with some people who are still around 25 years later, repackaging me and still making good money off me,” she says of Spector. “My career has all been about getting with people, trusting them and then having them do something to me.”
After the initial hits with Spector, Love kept busy with the Blossoms, whose work attracted admirers such as Elvis Presley.
“He wanted our sound for the gospel segment of his comeback special on TV in 1968, and he was so taken with us that he asked us to be in his movie `Change of Habit,’ ” Love says.
“Whenever there was a break while we were filming, he’d get his guitar and say, `C’mon, girls, let’s sing some stuff,’ and we’d sit around and do nothing but gospel. I guess he never really had a chance to do that with anybody else. Back then, black singers called it gospel, but our white counterparts called it spiritual or inspirational. There’s a big difference. Elvis understood gospel-he’d get in there with us and go.”
Not-so-secret admirers
Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, Love kept busy, including a long stint singing with Dionne Warwick. Admirers kept surprising her along the way.
“Bruce Springsteen and Steve Van Zandt came backstage when I was playing the Roxy in Los Angeles during the late ’70s,” Love says. “When they told me how much they loved my records, it humbled me. The same with Elton John. He sent me a telegram after I recorded my album with Columbia (in 1989) telling me how great it was. I didn’t know I’d touched so many people.”
It’s why Love still yearns to make music.
“I’m looking forward to getting another chance to record, to make a great record.” The rest will take care of itself, she says.
“Singing is what I do. The passion comes naturally. Hate. Love. Good. Bad. Just from living. You pull on all of that. I never had any trouble finding a reason to sing.”
