Darlene Love Quotes
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In church, they have the music where you jump and you shout, you know, and then you have the quiet music where you're sitting, you're meditating.
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I am so thankful for the genius of Phil Spector, for his recognition of my talent to be the main voice of his Wall of Sound.
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I never pushed to be a star. I didn't want to. I had my home, my family. Session work let you do the music and leave.
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I think we did our first session in 1958. There were no black background singers - there were only white singers. They weren't even called background singers; they were just called singers. I don't know who gave us the name 'background singers,' but I think that came about when The Blossoms started doing background.
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'If I Can Dream' is my all-time favorite Elvis song. It was a big record, but not as big as it could have been. It was one of those records where you'd think it sold 10 billion copies, but it didn't.
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The Blossoms had gotten so we were working seven days a week, three or four sessions a day, which was literally killing us, physically. With the instruments that the musicians play, they can do that, but not with us using our voices.
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Nobody put the camera on the background singers who were singing. It was on Stevie Wonder. It was on Elton John. It was on whoever was the lead singer out front. We were 20 feet from stardom.
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My pursuit was more in the music thing, so I never went out pursuing movies. It was more just pursuing my singing career because people came to me for singing more than they did for doing movies.
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I get such joy out of performing for people, and you can tell whether they like you or they don't like you the minute you walk out on the stage. And they don't even have to tell me that they had a good time. I know they had a good time.
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When I met Letterman, he told me he thought 'Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)' was the greatest Christmas song he ever heard, and he wanted me to be on his show to sing it.
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I enjoyed every minute of what I was doing with sessions, because The Blossoms, the group that I was singing with, they were the first black background singers. There weren't any.
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You just have to find a lawyer that won't let you sign certain things - and I mean the fine print, because I was gone from Phil Spector and signed with Gamble and Huff in Philadelphia, and Phil bought my record contract back from them.
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A lot of the people who saw me in the 'Lethal Weapon' movies didn't even know I was a singer.
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If you listen to most songs, most people will not sing the words of the lead singer. They will sing the hook. The hook is what makes the record sell.
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I worked with Dionne Warwick, did shows with Bette Midler, and then I did the 25th anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Springsteen at the Garden. It was all important stuff because you want people to know you can work, you can sing, and you can still look good!
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I think, for a long time, people thought I was a figment of Phil Spector's imagination because they knew The Crystals, they knew The Ronettes, they knew Bob B. Sox and the Blue Jeans, but had never had met Darlene Love.
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The Blossoms were actually the first black background singers that did recording sessions in California, but we had to start giving work away. We just couldn't do it all.
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I've always wanted to work with Barbra Streisand because she's worked with some of the best background singers in the world who are friends of mine, worked with them in concert or on movie soundtracks, and I always say 'Now, where was I? Where was I when she was hiring people to work with her?'
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I know God loves me. I tell people all the time I'm one of his favorite childs. I had to believe in something bigger than me - bigger than man. I had to believe that God would send somebody across my path to keep my dreams alive.
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My father was a Pentecostal minister; that's how I was brought up. So I never thought of having a secular career.
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With movies, they have a certain person or style that they're looking for. It's not that they don't like you, but maybe you're not the person that's right for their movie. That happens a lot.
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A lot of times, that's hard to capture: what you sound like in person versus what you sound like on record. If I had total control, I would do a lot of the old songs - not only my songs but Sam Cooke songs, Luther Vandross, melody songs. That's what I would really do if I had an opportunity to do a record.
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There's nothing better than lifting somebody's spirit with music.
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When I was a backup singer, I enjoyed it.