Pun Salad

This movie won the latest Best Documentary Oscar. We enjoyed it too. I'm not sure how it would go over with someone outside the Boomer demographic, but it resurrected a bunch of fond musical memories.

It looks at the world of the backup singer. Mostly female, mostly African-American. (Indeed, there's a bit of borderline reverse-racist slams at soulless white-girl singers. Oh well.) There's a lot of archive footage of performances and interviews, and a number of women are tracked down to what they are doing nowadays.

Shocker: Claudia Lennear, who was the inspiration for "Brown Sugar" by the Rolling Stones. Ex-Ikette. Performed and hung out with an array of superstars. Had a Playboy pictorial. What is she doing now? As the movie documents, she teaches Spanish in a dingy classroom. (Revealed after a bit of Googling to be Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut California, where she also teaches French, English, and Remedial Math.)

I believe I said "Whoa!" at this point in the movie. I did not see that coming.

Also appearing are other backup singers you've no doubt heard, if not heard of: Darlene Love, Táta Vega, Merry Clayton ("Gimme Shelter" would be unimaginable without her), Judith Hill, the Waters family, and more. Talking about backup singers: Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger, Sting, Stevie Wonder, …

I was somewhat surprised by how eloquent and insightful most of these wonderfully talented women were revealed to be: not just on their own careers, but also the nature of the music biz, fleeting fame and fortune.

It's a tad long. That's my only microgripe.