34 Quotes by Darlene Love

I am so thankful for the genius of Phil Spector, for his recognition of my talent to be the main voice of his Wall of Sound.

When I met Letterman, he told me he thought 'Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)' was the greatest Christmas song he ever heard, and he wanted me to be on his show to sing it.

The Blossoms were actually the first black background singers that did recording sessions in California, but we had to start giving work away. We just couldn't do it all.

I enjoyed every minute of what I was doing with sessions, because The Blossoms, the group that I was singing with, they were the first black background singers. There weren't any.

I think we did our first session in 1958. There were no black background singers - there were only white singers. They weren't even called background singers; they were just called singers. I don't know who gave us the name 'background singers,' but I think that came about when The Blossoms started doing background.

The Blossoms had gotten so we were working seven days a week, three or four sessions a day, which was literally killing us, physically. With the instruments that the musicians play, they can do that, but not with us using our voices.

The whole idea is you can't sit around and do nothing. You have to get up and start living one day at a time. That's what I did my entire career. You can't sit around and say, 'Oh, poor me. Nobody likes me. Nobody is giving me a job.' You have to get up and go. If you sit at home and do nothing, that is what is going to happen.

You just have to find a lawyer that won't let you sign certain things - and I mean the fine print, because I was gone from Phil Spector and signed with Gamble and Huff in Philadelphia, and Phil bought my record contract back from them.

A lot of times, that's hard to capture: what you sound like in person versus what you sound like on record. If I had total control, I would do a lot of the old songs - not only my songs but Sam Cooke songs, Luther Vandross, melody songs. That's what I would really do if I had an opportunity to do a record.