Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter - cover - Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy
One of the most striking moments surrounds soul singer Merry Clayton's powerful background vocals. "When we got to Los Angeles and we were mixing it, we thought, 'Well, it'd be great to have a woman come and do the rape/murder verse,' or chorus or whatever you want to call it,"said Jagger. "We randomly phoned up this poor lady in the middle of the night, and she arrived in her curlers and proceeded to do that in one or two takes, which is pretty amazing. She came in and knocked off this rather odd lyric. It's not the sort of lyric you give anyone--'Rape, murder/It's just a shot away'--but she really got into it, as you can hear on the record."
The daughter of a Baptist minister, Merry Clayton grew up singing in her father's church in New Orleans. She made her professional debut at age 14, recording a duet with Bobby Darin. She went on to work with The Supremes, Elvis Presley and many others, and was a member of Ray Charles's group of backing singers, The Raelettes. She is one of the singers featured in the new documentary film, 20 Feet From Stardom. In an interview last week with Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air, Clayton talked about the night she was asked to sing on "Gimme Shelter":
"Well, I'm at home at about 12--I'd say about 11:30, almost 12 o'clock at night. And I'm hunkered down in my bed with my husband, very pregnant, and we got a call from a dear friend of mine and producer named Jack Nitzsche. Jack Nitzsche called and said you know, Merry, are you busy? I said No, I'm in bed. he says, well, you know, There are some guys in town from England. And they need someone to come and sing a duet with them, but I can't get anybody to do it. Could you come? He said I really think this would be something good for you."
At that point, Clayton recalled, her husband took the phone out of her hand and said, "Man, what is going on? This time of night you're calling Merry to do a session? You know she's pregnant." Nitzsche explained the situation, and just as Clayton was drifting back to sleep her husband nudged her and said, "Honey, you know, you really should go and do this date." Clayton had no idea who the Rolling Stones were. When she arrived at the studio, Keith Richards was there and explained what he wanted her to do.
So they play the track and tell me that I'm going to sing--this is what you're going to sing: Oh, children, it's just a shot away. It had the lyrics for me. I said, Well, that's cool. So I did the first part, and we got down to the rape, murder part. And I said, Why am I singing rape, murder? ...So they told me the gist of what the lyrics were, and I said Oh, okay, that's cool. So then I had to sit on a stool because I was a little heavy in my belly. I mean, it was a sight to behold. And we got through it.
Clayton sang with such emotional force that her voice cracked. ("I was just grateful that the crack was in tune," she told Gross.) In the isolated vocal track above, you can hear the others in the studio shouting in amazement. Despite giving what would become the most famous performance of her career, it turned out to be a tragic night for Clayton. Shortly after leaving the studio, she lost her baby in a miscarriage. It has generally been assumed that the stress from the emotional intensity of her performance and the lateness of the hour caused the miscarriage. For many years Clayton found the song too painful to hear, let alone sing. "That was a dark, dark period for me," she told the Los Angeles Times in 1986, "but God gave me the strength to overcome it. I turned it around. I took it as life, love and energy and directed it in another direction, so it doesn't really bother me to sing 'Gimme Shelter' now. Life is short as it is and I can't live on yesterday."
I always find the stories behind the songs fascinating. Especially ones this epic. (and in this case heartbreaking)
In many ways, I think Merry's contribution is what "made the song."
I chose to do this song as I feel the world is close to a similar birth pang.
I hope you like it and I hope it brings awareness to how short life is and how we can all work together to make this a better place for everyone.
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