Darlene Love

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 TVs 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 NBCTV 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 Pitneypenned song Hes 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 LA 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 ZipaDee Doo Dah