20 Feet From Stardom

AroView: The most satisfying music documentary of the last five years, maybe even longer, and that is really saying something. It is the story of pop’s backing singers, the girls (and they are almost always girls) who stand at the back of the stage doing the doo-wahs etc., the response part of the “call and response” that made rock and soul music sound the way it did.

These were phenomenal artists in their own right – Darlene Love who was given a new name by Phil Spector before he stole her career right out from under her, Merry Clayton who got a middle-of-the-night phone call from the Rolling Stones and turned up in her curlers to belt out the spine-chilling vocal on Gimme Shelter and the amazing Lisa Fischer who won a Grammy as a solo artist in 1991 but is now content to provide her extraordinary talent to the Stones, Sting and Nine Inch Nails.

These women are forthright, wise and insightful – no surprise since they watching the whole scene unfold around them. ~ Dan Slevin