‘Twenty Feet from Stardom’ hits the right notes

The documentary 20 Feet from Stardom, which wowed the audience at this year’s Berkshire International Film Festival, is now playing at theaters throughout the county.

The film, directed by Morgan Neville (Troubadors, Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story), follows the high and low notes of the lives of backup singers from the 1960s through today.

Darlene Love (who performed her own rendition of “Lean on Me” at BIFF), Merry Clayton, Claudia Lennear, Tata Vega, Lisa Fischer and Judith Hill (seen on the NBC music competition show The Voice) all get the star treatment in this documentary.

They tell their tales of working with acts including The Rolling Stones, Luther Vandross (once a backup singer himself – for David Bowie), Sting and Michael Jackson.

And the tales they have to tell are utterly engrossing. Seeing these very talented ladies recount their heart-wrenching stories of failed solo albums and falling on hard times makes for some devastating moments on par with any of the biopics on major singers that have hit the screen over the last decade (Ray, Walk the Line).

Despite the devastation they’ve all felt at various points in their careers, the film still manages to create more of an upbeat feel to it, showing how strong these women are and how they’ve persevered against whatever obstacles they’ve faced.

There are also a few great laugh-out-loud moments, including two memorable Mick Jagger-related stories shared by Merry Clayton and Claudia Lennear.

Documentaries can get a bad rap for being all doom and gloom or facts and figures, but 20 Feet from Stardom is pound-for-pound just as entertaining and dramatic as any of the summer blockbusters out there right now, maybe even more so.

Posted by Catherine M. Krummey on July 25, 2013. Filed under Arts and Entertainment,Columns,Movie Reviews,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry