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Message started by Egon on Jan 26th, 2014 at 9:13am

Title: 20 feet from stardom (docu about backup singers)
Post by Egon on Jan 26th, 2014 at 9:13am
just stumbled across it while looking for porn movies to download:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2396566/

Anyone seen it?

Features lisa fisher, Mick, Bruce...

Title: Re: 20 feet from stardom (docu about backup singers)
Post by Paranoid Android on Jan 26th, 2014 at 9:35am
I saw it a little while back...about a week before i saw Lisa singing with Nine Inch Nails...

Title: Re: 20 feet from stardom (docu about backup singers)
Post by Rev 20 Redlights on Jan 28th, 2014 at 10:30am
Just saw it. Great great great. Absolutely essential
viewing. My ears have been wide open for 55 years,
and it still made me hear the music of those 55 years
better. Merry Clayton, Claudia Lennear, and Lisa Fisher
are featured, so a stones fan could not possibly ask
for more. Extraordinarily musical and quite emotional
too. A+++

Title: Re: 20 feet from stardom (docu about backup singers)
Post by The Wick on Jan 28th, 2014 at 11:47am
I haven't seen it but I heard there is a part where Mick gets emotional listening to Merry Clayton singing Gimme Shelter. Is that true? I just haven't seen Mick get emotional about much over the years.

Title: Re: 20 feet from stardom (docu about backup singers)
Post by Rev 20 Redlights on Jan 28th, 2014 at 7:35pm

The Wick wrote on Jan 28th, 2014 at 11:47am:
I haven't seen it but I heard there is a part where Mick gets emotional listening to Merry Clayton singing Gimme Shelter. Is that true? I just haven't seen Mick get emotional about much over the years.


I didn't see Mick as particularly emotional during that
scene, or with any of his comments. In fact Mick has
the deadliest most unemotional line in the film. It
really jars when after Bruce and all the other
commentators have waxed lyrical about the
contributions of all these background singers, Mick
says "Yeah I guess singing oohs and ahs would be
fun for a while, but I wouldn't want to make a
career of it." That's our Mick alright, keeping it real.
And his comment introduces the last section of the
film, which I really liked, the difference between a
singer and a star.

Title: Re: 20 feet from stardom (docu about backup singers)
Post by Rev 20 Redlights on Jan 28th, 2014 at 8:05pm
Perhaps what you heard about Mick's emotion referred
to what you can clearly hear on Merry's isolated vocal,
which is Mick spontaneously reacting with a shout way
back when in the studio, when Merry's voice famously
cracked. But Mick did not re-live that emotion for the
documentary, except maybe ever so slightly with his
eyes. If I'm remembering correctly.

Title: Re: 20 feet from stardom (docu about backup singers)
Post by Rev 20 Redlights on Jan 31st, 2014 at 12:40am

Rev 20 Redlights wrote on Jan 28th, 2014 at 8:05pm:
If I'm remembering correctly.


Well, I had a chance to see the film again and here's
how I saw it the second time...

1) It isn't so much that Mick is unemotional with his
comments, just unsentimental. Everybody else is
sentimental and nostalgic, but not Mick. It's not that
he disagrees with how great these singers are, it's
just that he thinks its so obvious that he doesn't
need to say it. So instead Mick chooses to be gently
joking. And if it comes across as a little like laughing
in church, so be it. So what. He's in party mode, not
near-obituary mode like everybody else.

2) One comment of his that made me laugh out loud the
second time watching was, after Claudia Lennear
reminesces about how much fun she and Mick used to
have together, wearing each other's clothes etc, they
cut to Mick and he agrees about how much fun Claudia had!
Its a good joke because you can see from the circa 1971
pictures that Mick was having a blast too, so again
there's no need for him to say it. So he doesn't.

3) I've always maintained that Mick often says the exact
opposite of what he means, and this film is very helpful
in proving that point. When Mick is listening to Merry
Clayton's isolated GS vocal, his face does obviously show
delight at both those famous notes from Merry and from
the fact that you can hear Mick yelp with joy on the
tape. Right in the moment. But then what does Mick say?
The exact opposite: "Y'know, you come back into the
studio the next day and listen and realize you have
something really good." I can almost guarantee that
there will be plenty of Stones students who use this
quote to "prove" that not even Mick knew what he had
when Merry sang, until the next day. Idiots. It was
a joke.

4) Here's another pertinent example, not from the film.
Mick always says when pressed about ticket prices,
"I think the secondary market should be illegal", which
he may or may not mean, but what he is also saying is,
"But since its not illegal, of course the Stones are
going to participate in it." Yes, the evil scalpers
that are getting all the blame include the Stones themselves
(through shell companies), and why not? Why should
somebody else get all that extra money?

5) Darlene Love appropriately is made the star of the
film, but Lisa comes very close to stealing the show.
Obviously, I knew she could really sing, but what she
does in the studio, with Sting among others, is just
jaw-dropping. Plus you get to know Lisa personally
in the film. And just fall in love with her. What an
incredibly sweet and sincere woman.

6) You can see why Mick has optioned the rights for
both a reality TV series and a Broadway show. This
subject matter is pure "Chorus Line".

7) I've always been just flattened about what
Lisa does on that Stripped Olympia GS version. So it
was nice to hear Lisa agree in the film that she was
particularly in the zone that night.

Title: Re: 20 feet from stardom (docu about backup singers)
Post by MRD8 on Feb 1st, 2014 at 7:50am
I just found this on a torrent site the other day, I agree it is a special movie! To get this and Muscle Shoals so close together was a real  treat...:)

Title: Re: 20 feet from stardom (docu about backup singers)
Post by gorda on Feb 5th, 2014 at 7:59am
Did anyone say "backup singer"?

That would be my dream job!  You get to travel around the world, stay at fancy hotels & meet celebrities!

Plus, the backup singers aren't really that famous, so they can still walk around amongst the people without getting mobbed by fans!

P.S.  Did y'all know that Mariah Carey used to sing backup vocals for Brenda K. Starr?

Brenda who?

Exactly!

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