Source link : https://las-vegas-news.com/7-backup-singers-who-quietly-transformed-classic-songs/
There’s a particular moment in certain songs where something shifts, a voice rises up from behind the lead singer and suddenly the track feels bigger than itself. Most listeners never learn the names behind those moments. Yet these singers, standing just off to the side of the spotlight, often did as much to define a recording’s identity as the artist whose name appears on the album cover.
The following seven vocalists rarely got top billing, but their contributions became inseparable from the songs they touched. Some were paid a modest session fee for an afternoon’s work. Others spent decades on tour buses and in studios, shaping sound after sound without ever needing their own marquee.
Merry Clayton and the scream heard on “Gimme Shelter”
In the autumn of 1969, Merry Clayton was pulled out of bed close to midnight and asked to drive to a Los Angeles studio to sing with a British rock band she barely knew. Producer Jack Nitzsche called and said there were some musicians in town from England who wanted a female vocalist to help with a song, and those musicians turned out to be the Rolling Stones working on “Gimme Shelter.” She was several months pregnant at the time and had come straight from a performance…
—-
Author : Matthias Binder
Publish date : 2026-08-05 11:34:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
—-
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8