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Posts tagged as “Millie Jackson”

MUSIC MONDAY: “Lean on Me” – Playlist Honoring Artists Who Passed in 2020 (LISTEN)

MUSIC MONDAY: “Lean on Me” – Playlist Honoring Artists Who Passed in 2020 (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on December 28, 2020

by Marlon West (FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)

Here’s a playlist of music artists who died this year. Although their beautiful voices and talents were lost in 2020, we can enjoy them for years to come.

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Musicians are often our collective voices, sharing ideas and feelings through their lyrics and melodies that the rest of us struggle to express. It’s why the deaths of musicians are often difficult to process.

It’s hard to say goodbye to the people who made the art and culture that define our times and speak so directly to us. This collection features soul, hip-hop, country, jazz, and other artists that have been taken by COVID-19, long illness, natural causes, gun violence, and overdoses.

There’s only one way into this world, yet they keep making up new ones to take us out. But I digress. Please enjoy this collection of music that will resonate for eons by folks we’ve lost on this trying trip around the sun.

An early Happy New Year to you all. I can’t scrape 2020 off the bottom of my proverbial shoe fast enough.

Stay safe, sane, and kind you all.

Marlon West (photo courtesy Marlon West)
#AAMAM: “Just A Shot Away” – Rediscovering Legendary Session Singer Merry Clayton (LISTEN)

#AAMAM: “Just A Shot Away” – Rediscovering Legendary Session Singer Merry Clayton (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on June 17, 2020

by Jeff Meier (FB: Jeff.Meier.90)

As part of Good Black News’ celebration of African-American Music Appreciation Month (#AAMAM), we are taking some time to honor quality artists whose music has nevertheless remained unappreciated.  Last week, we brought you a playlist from Ronnie Dyson.

This week we’d like to introduce/re-introduce you to Merry Clayton.

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Back in March 2014, as she was experiencing 50 years in the music business, legendary session singer Merry Clayton got one more chance at stardom when the documentary 20 Feet From Stardom, about the world’s most renowned backup singers, won the Best Documentary Oscar.

The doc brought renewed attention to performers such as Lisa Fischer, Judith Hill, Gloria Jones, and Clayton – whose voices you’ve undoubtedly heard, but whose names are a little less than familiar.

In the early ‘60s, Merry (who got her name because she was born on Christmas day) launched into a music career as a young teen, cutting a few one-off soul singles, and singing duet “Who Can I Count On?” with then 26 year-old pop hitmaker Bobby Darin when she was just a 14 year-old girl with a commanding voice.

Merry Clayton

By the late ‘60s, Merry Clayton’s role as a star backup singer hit its stride on The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” opposite Mick Jagger.  Her cries of “Rape, Murder/It’s just a shot away” are known to any classic rock fan. The story goes that she got the random session call late at night from one of the song’s producers during an all-night mixing session – and showed up in curlers, heavily pregnant, belting out the iconic vocals in just a few takes before heading back home (where she subsequently suffered a miscarriage).

During that same era, Merry Clayton was also one of the backup crew on countless legendary records by Carole King, Joe Cocker, Barbra Streisand, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Linda Ronstadt, Billy Preston, Tori Amos, and, as recently as 2015, Coldplay.

Her prominent rock backup turns earned the attention of rock music producer/impresario Lou Adler, who signed her to his Ode Records label (most famous for Carole King’s Tapestry LP).  In 1972, she further cemented her rock bonafides by appearing as The Acid Queen in the first London stage production of The Who’s rock opera, Tommy.

The very enjoyable 20 Feet (you can check it out on Netflix right now) essentially argued that if only these women had gotten the chance, they could have been big stars.