Right now the school cafeteria is closed until the Spring semester starts and the students come back. This means that if you want lunch, you'd better bring it from home or plan to go pick something up. It's an inconvenience but after five years, I'm used to it.
So today I went to Hannaford to pick up some soup. I also got 4 chicken wings because...well, they're chicken wings. Paid and then walked to my car. I turned it on, and one of my favorite songs was just beginning. It was "Gimme Shelter" by the Stones.
I took a couple of minutes to groove in my car before heading back to work. As I was driving and enjoying the song I thought, 'I wonder who the black woman is that sings with Mick on this song? I'll have to google it when I get back to work.' When the song ended, the dj answered that question for me like he had peeked into my head:
"Mick Jagger with some help from Merry Clayton on 'Gimme Shelter'. When he was recording the track, they called then 20-year-old Merry Clayton, woke her up at 2 a.m. and asked her to come to the studio. She showed up with rollers in her hair, in her pajamas, and four months pregnant; yet they laid that track in record time!" And as you know: she sounded fantastic! Being a woman of color myself, I know exactly what kind of rollers she was sleeping in, haha! But the sad news is that she suffered a miscarriage the very next day, losing her baby girl. So she outshone Mick on that song, but what a price she paid for those searing vocals and place in rock history.
As for a little more info on her: she was (and still is!) a successful gospel singer. She was also a successful backup singer for artists such as Bobby Darin, Ray Charles, Billy Preston, Ringo Starr, Carole King, Joe Cocker, Lynryd Skynyrd, Coldplay and many others.
Merry was involved in a terrible car crash in 2014, that resulted in both of her legs being amputated below the knee. But you can't keep a good woman down! She overcame this and continued with her music career. She is a walking, talking, singing miracle. She released her last album, Beautiful Scars, in April 2021 but she's still going strong.
I do a little singing myself (church) but you know I always try to hit her notes when that song comes on. And I fail every time! But it's all good as in my head I sound just like her 😉 So that's what I learned today about one of my favorite songs. Oh, and the song itself is about the Vietnam War. Give it a listen!
