Phil Spector discovered and named Darlene Love (she was born Darlene Wright), and she became a legend despite his underhanded dishonesty.
See, Spector had Ms. Love and her group the Blossoms record "He's a Rebel," the 1962 classic soul-pop song, as the Crystals. The real Crystals got the credit for the song. Spector could have stopped there, but he had Ms. Love record the song "He's Sure the Boy I love," with the promise of giving her proper credit; he released it as a Crystals record instead.
Undeterred, Ms. Love continued to work in the record business, singing background vocals on songs as diverse as Bobby Pickett's "Monster Mash" and Frank Sinatra's "That's Life." She dropped out of the music business in the 1970s, but she returned returned to music in the early 1980s, performing at venues in Los Angeles, and then went to New York after talking with Bruce Springsteen's guitarist Steven Van Zandt, performing at venues such as The Bottom Line.
Ms. Love played herself in a jukebox musical Leader of the Pack, based on the songs of Ellie Greenwich, and had appeared in the nightclub review Portrait of a Singer. The late 1980s found Ms. Love putting out a new album, Paint Another Picture, following in the 1990s by 1992's Bringing It Home and 1998's Unconditional Love. She also got into acting, playing Roger Murtagh's wife Trish in all four Lethal Weapon movies.
Ms. Love's signature song is Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)", written by Ellie Greenwich and her husband Jeff Barry, which she recorded for Phil Spector's 1963 Christmas album. She would perform it every December on David Letterman's CBS late-night talk show.
David Letterman may be done, but Darlene Love isn't.
Fun fact 1: Ms. Love was working as a maid in Beverly Hills when she heard "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" while cleaning someone's house, which convinced her to go back to singing.
Fun fact 2: She was featured in the 2013 documentary movie 20 Feet From Stardom, about backup singers.
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