Darlene Love
Darlene Wright (born July 26, 1941),[a] better known by the stage name Darlene Love, is an American R&B and soul singer and actress. She was the lead singer of the girl group the Blossoms and she also recorded as a solo artist.
Darlene Love
She began singing as a child with her local church choir. In 1962, she began recording with producer Phil Spector who renamed her Darlene Love. She sang lead on "He's a Rebel" and "He's Sure the Boy I Love," which were credited to the Crystals. She was soon a highly sought-after vocalist and worked with many rock and soul legends of the 1960s, including Sam Cooke, Dionne Warwick, Bill Medley, the Beach Boys, Elvis Presley, Tom Jones and Sonny and Cher. As an actress, Love performed in various Broadway productions. She had a recurring role as Roger Murtaugh's wife in the Lethal Weapon film series.
Love was invited annually by David Letterman to sing the song "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" on his late night television talk show just prior to the Christmas holidays. These performances started in 1986 on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman and continued on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman until 2014. Letterman called Love the "Christmas Queen". In 2015 she started singing the song annually on The View.
Ranked among Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Singers, Love was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011. Love is featured in the Oscar-winning documentary film 20 Feet from Stardom (2013), for which she won a Grammy Award.
Early life[edit]
Love was born Darlene Wright on July 26, 1941, in Los Angeles, to Ellen Maddox and Reverend Joe Wright.[1] Her younger sister Edna Wright grew up to be the lead singer of the group Honey Cone.[2] She grew up mostly in Los Angeles, but also spent a few years of her youth in Texas.[3]
As a minister's daughter, she grew up listening to gospel music and was a dedicated member of her church. Wright began singing with her local church choir at age ten in Hawthorne, California. During choir practice she caught the attention of choir director Cora Martin-Moore. After singing for Martin-Moore she was asked to go to the Music Mart where she sang and did some broadcasts.[4] As it was her first musical experience, it was also the main influence for her to pursue a music career.[5]
Music career[edit]
Early career[edit]
While still in high school (1957) she sang with the Echoes,[6] a mixed gender doo-wop group. She was then invited to join a little-known girl group called the Blossoms.[7]
In 1962, the Blossoms were hired to sing on a session by producer Phil Spector.[8] His girl group, the Crystals, could not make it to Los Angeles in time for the session, so Wright was paid $5,000 to sing lead on "He's a Rebel."[8] This was Wright's first time on a Spector recording.[9] The single, credited to the Crystals, was hurriedly released by Spector on Philles Records to get his version of the Gene Pitney song onto the market before that of Vikki Carr.[10] The ghost release of this single came as a total surprise to the Crystals who were an experienced and much traveled girl harmony group in their own right, but they were nevertheless required to perform and promote the new single on television and on tour as if it were their own.[11] The single reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1962.[10]
Following the release of "He's a Rebel," Wright signed a deal with Spector, who renamed her Darlene Love.[8] She recorded "He's Sure the Boy I Love," which she thought would be released under her name, but Spector credited it to the Crystals.[8] Cynthia Weil, who co-wrote the song with her husband Barry Mann was unaware that Love had sung on the track: "It all came out later. I think it was a terrible thing to do to her."[8] Spector had Love sing "Da Doo Ron Ron" in the studio, but he decided to record it with another singer at the last minute.[8]
Love recorded the track "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" for the 1963 holiday compilation album, A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector. The song was written by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, along with Phil Spector, with the intention of being sung by Ronnie Spector of the Ronettes. According to Love, Ronnie Spector was not able to put as much emotion into the song as needed. Instead, Love was brought into the studio to record the song, which became a large success over time and Love's signature tune.
As a member of the Blossoms, Love contributed backing vocals behind many of the biggest hits of the 1960s including the Ronettes' "Be My Baby", Shelley Fabares' "Johnny Angel", Bobby "Boris" Pickett's "Monster Mash", Frank Sinatra's version of "That's Life", and the Crystals' "Da Doo Ron Ron". The Blossoms recorded singles, usually with little success, on Capitol 1957–58 [pre-Darlene Love], Challenge 1961–62, OKeh 1963, Reprise 1966–67, Ode 1967, MGM 1968, Bell 1969–70, and Lion 1972.
As a solo artist, Love also contributed backing vocals to the Ronettes' "Baby, I Love You". She was also part of a trio called Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans, who recorded Spector's version of "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah", an Oscar-winning song from the 1946 Walt Disney film Song of the South, which got into the Top 10 in 1963.
The Blossoms landed a weekly part on Shindig!, one of the top music shows of the era. They also appeared on Johnny Rivers' hits, including "Poor Side of Town" "Baby I Need Your Loving" and "The Tracks of My Tears". The Blossoms were part of the Elvis Presley's '68 Comeback Special, which aired on NBC. Love and the Blossoms sang backup for Sharon Marie (Esparza) (a Brian Wilson act), as well as John Phillips' solo album John, Wolfking of L.A., recorded in 1969.
Acting career[edit]
In the late 1980s and also in the 1990s, Love also began an acting career, playing Trish Murtaugh, the wife of Danny Glover's character, in the four Lethal Weapon movies.[7]
Love has held many star roles in various Broadway productions. She acted and sang in Grease, in the short-lived musical adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie, and starred as Motormouth Maybelle in Broadway's Hairspray from August 2005 till April 2008.[18] She later reprised the role in the Hollywood Bowl production of the show in 2011.
In 2019, she appeared in the Netflix original movie Holiday Rush.[19]
In 2020, she appeared and sang in the Netflix original movie The Christmas Chronicles 2.
Christmas television performances[edit]
Love performed the song "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" on the last pre-Christmas episode of Late Night with David Letterman (NBC) which aired December 10, 1986 and then annually (with the exception of 2007) on Late Show with David Letterman (CBS) beginning with (air date) December 23, 1994. Her final Christmas appearance was on December 19, 2014, nine days after the official announcement that the show's finale would be in May 2015.[20] Letterman has stated that the annual performance is his favorite part of Christmas. She was dubbed by Letterman as the "Christmas Queen".[21] Love appeared in a reunion short with Letterman on his YouTube channel in 2023, again performing the song.[22]
Due to the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike, Love was unable to perform on the Letterman show in 2007;[23] a repeat of her 2006 performance was shown instead. Since 2015, Love has performed the song annually on ABC's The View,[24] only skipping out the 2021 edition due to being exposed to a positive COVID-19 case resulting in a quarantine; a compilation of her previous performances was shown instead.[25] She has usually performed the song as a duet, being joined by Patti LaBelle in 2016, Fantasia in 2017, and Bryan Adams in 2018. Love also performed "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" in season six, episode 10 of the Fox television series New Girl (2016).
Love was a special guest on the December 17, 2005, broadcast of Saturday Night Live, singing "White Christmas" with the SNL band and providing the vocals for a Robert Smigel cartoon entitled "Christmastime for the Jews."
In November 2023, Love, in a duet with Cher, performed "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" at the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree lighting ceremony.[26] Love also performed solo on "A Marshmallow World" at the event.[27]
Personal life[edit]
Love was married three times and has three children. She married Leonard Peete in 1959.[1] She had two sons with him: Marcus (born 1961) and Chawn (born 1964), and a daughter, Rosalynn, who died shortly after birth.[1]They divorced in 1968. She married Wesley Mitchell in 1971, had a son, Jason Davion (born 1974), and later divorced.[1] Love married Alton Allison on June 28, 1984 in Teaneck, New Jersey, and they reside in Rockland County, New York.[28][1]
Awards and honors[edit]
In 1995, Love received the Rhythm and Blues Foundation's Pioneer Award.[4]
In 2008, Love was ranked No. 84 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Singers list.[29]
On March 14, 2011, Love was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,[29][30] with a speech by Bette Midler.[31][32] Midler said "she changed my view of the world, listening to those songs, you had to dance, you had to move, you had to keep looking for the rebel boy". Near tears, Love noted that she would turn 70 later that year, and thanked Spector "for recognizing my talent and making me the main voice in his Wall of Sound". Her speech elicited a standing ovation. Later, she sang "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" with Bruce Springsteen providing a guitar solo.[33]
In 2015, Love won her first Grammy Award for Best Music Film for the documentary 20 Feet From Stardom.[34]
In 2015, Love was featured in the September issue of Entertainment Weekly. In the music section of the magazine, it introduced Love's five decades of musical accomplishments, such as different solos and albums.
Love provided the inaugural performance to christen the opening of the Clermont Performing Arts Center in Clermont, Florida on September 26, 2015.[35]
Notes[edit]
a. ^ Some sources say 1938; see talk page discussion.