“Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been” is a documentary about one of the greatest singers in pop music history and a stunning meditation on this question. identity in pop music. Darlene Love recorded her most iconic songs in the early 1960s while she was a member of Phil Spector’s hit factory. In 1962, she fronted a band called the Blossoms, which Spector recruited to sing “He’s a Rebel,” the song that became the prototype for “Wall of Sound.” The song was supposed to be sung by the Crystals, but they were 3,000 miles away in New York, and Spector, eager to get the song into production, didn’t think it mattered—he could give the credit to the Crystals (which he did) and no one would know.
Darlene Love sings “He’s a Rebel” with a playful majesty that builds power until the reverence for the bad boy becomes almost arrogant. (It’s no accident that Kenneth Anger adapted the song in “Scorpio Rising” to have her sing about Jesus.) Her voice is as big as the wall of sound she helps create. She sang lead vocals on another Crystals song, “He’s Sure the Boy I Love,” and performed background vocals on many other Spector songs, and in 1963 sang the greatest pop Christmas song of all time, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).” She deserves credit for the album, but “The Phil Spector Christmas Album” was unfortunately released on November 22, 1963, the day JFK was assassinated. The record failed; a few weeks later, Spector suppressed any further distribution of it. The album was largely lost (until re-released by Apple Records in 1972). So even though Darlene Love was included on the album’s greatest song, her name was still missing.
Thirteen years ago, Morgan Neville’s documentary 20 Feet to Stardom paid tribute to rock’s most famous backup singers, most of whom were black, and how they spent their careers in the shadows. One of those singers is Darlene Love, who plays an important role in the film. When it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, it was Love who stood up at the Oscars and gave a memorable speech. “20 Feet from Stardom” captures a very specific situation: the artists it involves didn’t become stars, but the film suggests that in an alternate universe they might have been.
Darlene Love, however, experienced a special, heightened version of this conundrum. She lingers in the background and doesn’t get the recognition she deserves. At the same time, she was A star. While not a lofty goal, if becoming a bona fide pop star meant singing lead vocals on some of the most magical records of the 20th century, then Love did it. She was right up front, leading the charge. it’s her Name That was removed, so in a weird way, her identity was removed as well. You know this voice in your vocal bones, but it is right in front of you and invisible at the same time.
Darlene Love didn’t need another universe (she lived in two), and Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been tracks the unique blend of glory, injustice, fleeting opportunity, dashed dreams, resilience and modern recognition that defines her story. This film, like Love’s life and career, is a unique journey, and by the end you’ll not only feel like you know and understand this remarkable artist. You feel closer to the center of the mysteries of pop music.
Love is now 85, but she is immortalized in this documentary based on her current interviews (albeit with plenty of wonderful archival footage). Under a wig of orange-blond curls, her face glows, her smile dances, her laughter rings, her personality is sassy and vivid, and she doesn’t look at all old. Love met Paul Shaffer in 1986 when David Letterman fell in love with “Christmas (Baby Don’t Come)” and decided to have Love perform the song on his late-night show (a performance that became an annual ritual). The documentary follows Schaeffer as she leads a band on Love at Power Station Studios, where she performs updated versions of several key songs. Her voice is extraordinary and its power and quality have not diminished in any way. Love, it turns out, is the great narrator of her own legend. She knows what she’s been deprived of (not just credit, but the life she could have had), but she’s moved beyond the pain.
The film’s director, Barry Avrich, takes us back to the radio era (which he pays homage to in the opening credits), when you’ll hear voice Coming out of that box, that voice grabs you. Born Darlene Wright in 1941, Love spent the first 15 years of her life in church between Los Angeles and Texas, as passionate about the gospel as Aretha or Ray Charles. She joined the Blossoms in the late 1950s, and they sang backup on many classic songs, starting with Sam Cooke’s “Everybody Likes to Cha Cha Cha,” then moving on to “Chain Gang” and “Rockin’ Robin,” “Monster Mash” and “Johnny Angel.”
From there, they turned to Phil Spector. They served as backup singers for him, and were replaced by the Crystals, Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, for whom Love sang lead vocals on the lilting “Why Do Lovers Break Each Other’s Hearts.” Even then, Spector was a holy terror (though he was also a genius) in the name game he played with his female soul singers, moving them around as if they were interchangeable game board pieces designed to do several things at once. This made Spector a star himself. (He was the first producer to do so.) This allowed him to withhold royalties. In the largest sense, this is the (racist) way he treats all of his talents like indentured servants.
Love became a magnetic presence on “Shindig!,” one of the great rock TV shows that made the performers go wild and hairy (Shafer offers a wonderful recollection of it). She sang backup vocals with the Blossoms on the hit “Monday, Monday” and the Beach Boys’ “In My Room,” toured with other Spector singers and formed a serious relationship with Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers. On stage, she displays toothy arrogance.
Her career is a series of missed opportunities, one of which sounds like a conspiracy theory, albeit a fascinating one, as presented in “I Know Where I’ve Been.” Love originally planned to record “River Deep, Mountain High” for Phil Spector. At the last minute, he switched the singer to Tina Turner – and of course the song was a legendary commercial failure, effectively ending Spector’s reign. The theory put forward is that Turner’s rendition of the song was too R&B-y to succeed on the pop charts in 1966. And Love’s pop-soul crooning is smoother and could have made it a hit. Ah, the temptation of parallel universe thinking! The documentary reveals how Spector became more creepy over time and continued to follow her, at one point buying out her contracts with others. There’s no doubt that Spector’s great songs made her career, but the way he designed them also nipped them in the bud.
In the early ’70s, Love was still singing (we heard her perform a catchy rendition of “I’ll Be There”), but as her peak R&B era ended, so did her opportunities. She was married several times and had four children, two of whom were involved in gang activity in Los Angeles and ended up in prison. (They later emerge victorious.) Love ends up cleaning house. Yet she has not been forgotten. Bruce Springsteen and Steven Van Zandt were long-ago fans who were interested in her (they gave extensive interviews). She eventually revived her career by performing throwback shows on cruise ships. This eventually led to the 1984 jukebox musical “Leader of the Pack,” which she starred in when it began at Greenwich Village club The Bottom Line. This caused a stir. The documentary suggests that it was also a success when it moved to Broadway (it wasn’t; it stalled there), but “Darlene Love” was relaunched.
Still, she Approved. Letterman’s electrifying performance of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” with a larger chorus every year, has served her well, as has her 2011 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Suddenly, everyone knew who Darlene Love was. “I know where I’ve been” ends the journey. This is a film that will blow you away – the stunning beauty of her voice, the forces large and small that marginalized her at the time, and our awareness of what could have been, which should never get in the way of our reverence for the past.