#682) 20 Feet from Stardom (2013)

The Plot: After several documentaries focusing on some of music’s greatest headliners, Morgan Neville turns his camera to the backup vocalists. “20 Feet from Stardom” is a celebration of the singers who, despite being in the background, are as outstanding as the artists they’re supporting. Of the singers interviewed, “20 Feet” primarily focuses on four: Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, and Judith Hill. Each recounts their early passion for singing, their first successes singing backup for bigger acts, their struggles branching out into solo careers, and their surprisingly unresentful feelings about where they ended up in life.

Why It Matters: Once again, the NFR write-ups for 2023 are lacking in superlatives, with “20 Feet” only getting a basic rundown; though they do call Merry Clayton’s “Gimme Shelter” contribution “[a] highlight”.

But Does It Really?: How can anyone not like this movie? In a culture teeming with talking head rock documentaries, “20 Feet from Stardom” stands out thanks to its unique perspective and sensitive storytelling. In a brisk 90 minutes, Morgan Neville takes us on a journey with these women, and gives us a newfound appreciation for all of the artists that contribute to our favorite music, not just the headliners. It’s too soon to know if “20 Feet from Stardom” will be a classic or essential documentary, but I’m awfully glad it’s on the NFR. 

Shout Outs: Among the clips shown of projects the interviewees have provided backup vocals for are NFR entries “Thriller“, “Stop Making Sense“, and “The Lion King“. “Stop Making Sense” backup performer Lynn Mabry is one of this film’s interviewees.

Everybody Gets One: Morgan Neville started his career as a journalist before pivoting to documentary filmmaking at age 25. Almost all of his early documentaries center around musicians, with subjects including Johnny Cash, Muddy Waters, and Brian Wilson. Neville was pitched the idea for “20 Feet from Stardom” by record producer Gil Friesen, who had just watched a Leonard Cohen concert and was impressed with its backup singers. Neville quickly realized that there was virtually nothing documenting the careers of backup singers, and interviewed dozens of singers (as many as 50) for an oral history. These interviews served as the backbone for what became “20 Feet from Stardom”.

Everybody Gets One – Zero Feet from Stardom Edition: Thanks to their participation in the film’s interviews, this is the only NFR appearance for such music legends as Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Sheryl Crow, and Bette Midler.

Title Track: Interestingly enough, although all of the film’s promotional material lists the title as “20 Feet from Stardom”, the actual title in the film spells out the number as “Twenty Feet from Stardom”. Usually I side with whatever is in the film proper, but I’m sticking to the number 20 because I’ve already updated this site and I’m too lazy to change everything.

Seriously, Oscars?: A hit upon release, “20 Feet from Stardom” won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Morgan Neville was joined onstage by co-producer Caitrin Rogers, Janet Friesen (representing her late husband Gil), and Darlene Love, who brought the house down with her rendition of “His Eye Is On the Sparrow”.

• The closest this movie gets to a bad guy is Phil Spector, the convicted murderer/record producer who had Darlene Love under a very restrictive contract in the ’60s and ’70s. Also mentioned briefly is Ike Turner, who interviewee Claudia Lennear did backup for (along with Tina of course). If you know anything about Ike Turner, it should come as no surprise that his mention here segues into a conversation about toxic work environments and emotional abuse.
• Speaking of Tina Turner, I can see how she earned her nickname “The Hardest Working Woman in Show Business”. She and her backup singers have choreography that blows the roof off of anything else that was going on back then. Watching Tina’s backup performers (the chauvinistically named Ikettes) be able to match her boundless energy on stage is still an incredible thing to watch. You just wish they had all been treated better at the time.
• Claudia Lennear’s interview fascinated me, as she is the only major interviewee in this movie who walked away from showbiz and never returned, spending the last several decades teaching high school Spanish, French, and Math. She slyly skirts around her relationships with Mick Jagger and David Bowie in her interview, and seems to have forgotten that she posed for Playboy in 1974. What a life.
• As the NFR write-up mentions, the real treasure of the movie is Merry Clayton relating the story of how she got a late-night call to sing a solo for a Rolling Stones recording session, which ended up being the solo in the middle of “Gimme Shelter”, arguably the most famous vocal solo in rock history. The highlight is when Merry, nearly 50 years later, gets to hear her isolated vocal track, allowing us to hear her contribution in all its raw glory.

• Lisa Fischer speaks fondly of her time singing backup for Luther Vandross, who I always forget started off as a backup singer himself. Side note: Mr. Vandross sings backup on Bowie’s “Young Americans”, one of my favorite songs.

• Also on hand throughout are the Waters siblings – Oren, Julia, and Maxine – who rattle off the impressive list of films and music they have supplied vocals for. Oren even mentions supplying bird noises for “Avatar” (possibly the Mighty Ikran). It amuses me that a movie that includes a clip from “Avatar” made the NFR before “Avatar” (which as of this writing hasn’t made the cut).
• Of course, the most heartbreaking segment is when all of these singers recount their attempts at solo careers that never got off the ground. One of this film’s main points is that talent doesn’t always equal fame, a hard lesson to learn in your youth. Merry Clayton sums it up when she says, “I felt that if I gave my heart to what I was doing I would automatically be a star.” Backup singer/interviewee Tata Vega gives her own spin on the upside of not being famous, theorizing that if her solo career had taken off, she would have OD’d long before this documentary was made.
• As a lifelong devotee of David Letterman, it shocks me that there was a time when Darlene Love was anything other than a star. Her annual performance of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” on Letterman’s show was always a season highlight, and it’s just not Christmas for me (and many others) without Darlene.
• Judith Hill is positioned within the film’s narrative as a rising star, and understandably so. She was touring with Michael Jackson when he died, and her performance at his memorial concert made her an overnight sensation. Hill talks here about her struggles to focus on her solo career while turning down backup gigs, and the backlash she got on Twitter when she was spotted singing backup for Kylie Minogue on a Leno appearance. This may be the first NFR movie to mention the hellhole that is Twitter/X.

• I walked away from this movie really liking Lisa Fischer. She just seems like the loveliest human, and one who is happy with her lot in life; getting to share her talents without dealing with the hassles and hazards of fame. It’s funny how after 90 minutes I feel like I know Lisa (as well as the other subjects), with my main takeaway being “I hope she’s doing well.”
• The finale is Darlene Love recording a cover of “Lean on Me” with Lisa and Judith (alongside singer Jo Lawry) on back-up. It’s hard to think of a song that works as a metaphor for backup singing, but “Lean on Me” does the job, and it is no surprise that these four knock it out of the park with a simple, sincere, yet powerful rendition.

• Morgan Neville’s immediate follow-up to “20 Feet” was as far away from this movie as you can get: 2015’s “The Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal”. Subsequent films include “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” and “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain”. My personal favorite is “They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead”, his 2018 companion piece to Orson Welles’ final film “The Other Side of the Wind”.

• In the decade since “20 Feet” came out, Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Judith Hill, and Tata Vega have all continued to perform both as solo artists and backup singers (and as best I can tell Claudia Lennear is still teaching). Darlene Love recently reunited with Letterman to do another rendition of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” and I’m not crying you’re crying.

Listen To This: Unsurprisingly, some of these singers show up doing backup vocals on songs in the National Recording Registry. Darlene Love (along with The Blossoms) can be heard singing backup on The Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling“, the Waters do backup on Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album, and Maxine Waters is featured on Irene Cara’s “Flashdance…What a Feeling“.