Darlene Love was in on the joke when it was time to name her new album. “Introducing Darlene Love.”
Get it? Here’s a woman who has been a fixture in pop music since the early 1960s, starting with her work as a backup singer with the Blossoms and her legendary recordings with producer Phil Spector (“He’s a Rebel”). She is beloved by everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Bette Midler, the latter of whom inducted Love into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.
Yet Love has always been dogged by the persistent assumption that she is an unsung hero, an artist dealt a crummy hand early on only to have her luck turn around late in life. Her hard-won victory was the heart and soul of “20 Feet From Stardom,” the Oscar-winning 2013 documentary about the joys and struggles of backing vocalists.
Now Love, 74, has a bookend to the film that prompted a reappraisal of her legacy. On Friday, Columbia Records, in partnership with Wicked Cool Records, will release her first solo album of secular songs since 1988. (She released some gospel records in the ’90s.) (Click here for the full article)
