I don’t remember him being there, but apparently it was Jack Nitzsche who recommended Merry Clayton to come in and sing with Mick on “Gimme Shelter,” which along with “Street Fighting Man” is without question one of my favorite Stones tracks. She was called very late at night and, being heavily pregnant and already in bed, was singularly unimpressed at being disturbed at such a late hour. She had no idea who The Rolling Stones were and was reluctant to come. Her husband got on the phone and once he realized who the session was for persuaded her to change her mind. She was absolutely amazing. None of us had ever heard anything quite like what she produced that night. I practically had to stand her in another room, her voice was so powerful. She did three amazing takes, standing there with her hair still in curlers, and went home. Her husband was quite right. The performance made her very famous and quite rightly so. The tragedy was that not long after the session she had a miscarriage and lost her baby. Believing that the effort that she put into her performance that night may well have been the cause, she could never listen to the Stones’ version of the song. - Sound Man, Glyn Johns. Wow. Didnt know that.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 04:44:22 +0000
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