‘Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been’ Review: A Stirring Pop Doc Traces How the Great Singer of ‘He’s a Rebel’ and Other Classics Reclaimed Her Name

Darlene Love holds a unique and bittersweet position in the annals of popular music: her voice is instantly familiar to millions, yet for decades her name remained largely unknown. A new documentary by director Barry Avrich, titled "Darlene Love: I Know Where I've Been," explores both her extraordinary career and the wider problem of identity erasure within the music business. The film reveals how Love's vocals became embedded in the cultural foundation of America while her own name was systematically omitted from the narrative. As music historian Dr. Portia Maultsby of Indiana University has observed, "The practice of using Black vocalists as uncredited session singers was systemic in the 1960s, a form of cultural redlining that kept the architects of the sound from reaping its rewards."

Born Darlene Wright in 1941, Love spent her early years between Los Angeles and Texas, soaking in gospel music during her first 15 years in church—a foundation comparable to that of Aretha Franklin or Ray Charles. In the late 1950s she joined the Blossoms, a group that provided backup vocals for a long list of hits, including Sam Cooke's "Everybody Likes to Cha Cha Cha," "Chain Gang," "Rockin' Robin," "Monster Mash," and "Johnny Angel." Their path eventually led them to Phil Spector, the producer whose Wall of Sound came to define an era. Spector, born in 1939 and later convicted of murder in 2009, was a controlling visionary who regarded his female soul singers as interchangeable. In 1962 he brought the Blossoms in to record "He's a Rebel," a song intended for the Crystals. But the Crystals were 3,000 miles away in New York, and Spector, eager to get the track into production, simply put their name on it. No one was meant to know the truth. Love's sassy, ascending vocal, almost regal in its devotion to the bad boy, became the blueprint for the Wall of Sound. Filmmaker Kenneth Anger later repurposed the song in "Scorpio Rising" so that Love was singing about Jesus, a sign of its near-religious force.

Love also sang lead on another Crystals track, "He's Sure the Boy I Love," and contributed background vocals to countless Spector productions. In 1963 she recorded "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)," often called the greatest pop Christmas song ever put on tape. She was credited on that one, but "The Phil Spector Christmas Album" came out on Nov. 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The record stalled, and Spector pulled it from distribution after a few weeks. The album was essentially lost until Apple Records reissued it in 1972. Even though Love had been billed on its standout track, her name stayed lost too. Thirteen years ago, Morgan Neville's documentary "20 Feet from Stardom" honored rock 'n' roll's most legendary backup singers, most of them Black, and the way they spent their careers in the shadows. Love was a central figure in that film, and when it won the Oscar for best documentary, it was she who rose at the Academy Awards and gave an unforgettable speech.

"20 Feet from Stardom" captured a specific predicament: its subjects never became stars, but the film implied that in another reality they might have. Love, though, has lived an intensified version of that dilemma. She remained in the background, denied the recognition she earned, yet she was also a star. Not a maximal one, but if being a true pop singer means singing lead on some of the most magical recordings of the 20th century, Love did exactly that. She was out front, driving the sound. It was her name that was erased, so in a strange way her identity was erased too. You knew that voice in your sonic bones, but it was in front of you and invisible at the same time. Love didn't need an alternate universe—she lived in both universes—and "Darlene Love: I Know Where I've Been" tracks the unique fusion of glory, injustice, fleeting opportunity, dashed dreams, resilience, and latter-day recognition that defines her story.

Love is 85 now, but in the documentary, built around a present-day interview with her and supplemented by a wealth of archival footage, she appears ageless. Under a wig of orange-blonde curls, her face beams, her smile dances, her laugh rings out, her personality funky and vivid. She simply doesn't seem old. Love got to know Paul Shaffer when David Letterman fell in love with "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" and decided in 1986 to feature her singing it on his late-night show—a performance that became an annual ritual. The documentary sets up Love with Shaffer leading a band at the Power Station studio in New York City, where she performs updated renditions of several key songs. Her voice remains extraordinary, its force and quality undimmed. Love proves a great narrator of her own legend. She knows what she was robbed of—not just credit but the life she could have had—yet she has transcended bitterness.

The film takes viewers back to the age of radio, when a voice coming out of a box could take hold of you. Love became a magnetic presence on "Shindig!," the great rock 'n' roll TV show that allowed its performers to be wild and woolly. She led the Blossoms in backup vocals on pop songs from "Monday, Monday" to the Beach Boys' "In My Room," and she toured with other Spector singers, falling into a serious relationship with Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers. Onstage, she had a toothy insolence. Her career was a string of missed opportunities, including one that sounds like a conspiracy theory. Love was originally set to record "River Deep, Mountain High" for Spector. At the last minute, he switched the singer to Tina Turner. The song was a legendary commercial flop, the one that effectively ended Spector's reign. The theory presented is that Turner's rendition had too much R&B grit to succeed on the pop charts of 1966, whereas Love, with her smoother pop-soul croon, would have made it a hit. Ah, the seduction of alternate-universe thinking. Spector became a creepier presence with the years and continued to shadow her, at one point buying out a contract she had with someone else. There's no doubt that Spector's great songs made her career, but the way he designed it, they also nipped it in the bud.

Love was still singing in the early '70s—we hear her do a spellbinding rendition of "I'll Be There"—but as the age of peak R&B wound down, so did her opportunities. She married several times and had four children, two of whom became involved in the L.A. gang scene and wound up in prison. They have since emerged and triumphed. Love wound up cleaning houses. Yet she was not forgotten. Bruce Springsteen and Steven Van Zandt, both longtime fans, took an interest in her; they are interviewed extensively. She revived her career by doing nostalgia-act performances on cruise ships, which ultimately led to the 1984 jukebox musical revue "Leader of the Pack." She was featured in it when it began performances at the Bottom Line in Greenwich Village, and it became a sensation. The documentary hints that it was also successful when it moved to Broadway, which isn't the case—it flamed out there—but Darlene Love was relaunched. And as much as that, she was recognized. The exultant Letterman performances of "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)," featuring bigger choirs each year, helped a great deal, as did her 2011 induction into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. Suddenly, everyone knew who Darlene Love was. "I Know Where I've Been" completes the journey. It's a film that leaves you staggered—at the soul-stirring splendor of her voice, at the forces of the time, both big and small, that marginalized her, and at our awareness of what might have been, which should never stand in the way of our awe at what was.