Darlene Love
- Music Artist
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born Darlene Wright in Los Angeles in 1938, she began her career as
lead singer with the vocal trio,
The Blossoms. After a spell as regulars on
ABC TV's variety show
Shindig! (1964) in the early 60s,
the trio went on to sing backup on a variety of
Elvis Presley recordings, and even backed
him on his 1968 NBC-TV special
Elvis: The Comeback Special (1968). For a while, they
backed Tom Jones during some of his
Las Vegas shows. The Blossoms have the rare
distinction of recording a number one hit without ever receiving any
credit. Years before the advent of
Milli Vanilli, Darlene Love,
Fanita James and Gracie Nitzsche sang
vocals on the Gene Pitney-penned song "He's
a Rebel" that was championed as
The Crystals' first (and only) No. 1 US
hit. Because of confounding logistics, record producer
Phil Spector had to use
The Blossoms because
The Crystals were on the wrong coast of the
US at the time. And since he was up against the clock in L.A.
attempting to get his production on the airwaves before the
Vikki Carr version, he had no choice.
Love also sang vocals on the Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans top twenty
hit "Zip-a-Dee Doo Dah".
