Darlene Love

“I know God loves me. I tell people all the time I'm one of his favorite childs. I had to believe in something bigger than me - bigger than man. I had to believe that God would send somebody across my path to keep my dreams alive.”

“Background singers who are any good have to be great imitators.”

“I worked with Dionne Warwick, did shows with Bette Midler, and then I did the 25th anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Springsteen at the Garden. It was all important stuff because you want people to know you can work, you can sing, and you can still look good!”

“When you hate people, it not only makes you hate that person, it gives that vibe off for everything around you. I really do believe that.”

“It means a lot to me, the sanctity of marriage.”

“A lot of the people who saw me in the 'Lethal Weapon' movies didn't even know I was a singer.”

“I always say that when I was recording with Phil Spector, he would not let me really sing, you know? And even to make me sound younger, he would speed the track up. He still wanted that real nice, little, quiet, sweet little sound.”

“I'm always happy to be a part of history. When you're a part of history, you live forever. 'The T.A.M.I. Show' will live forever because now it's brand new. We did that 40-odd years ago, and people are really starting to see it now. I was a part of history when I recorded that show.”

“Nobody put the camera on the background singers who were singing. It was on Stevie Wonder. It was on Elton John. It was on whoever was the lead singer out front. We were 20 feet from stardom.”

“I think we did our first session in 1958. There were no black background singers - there were only white singers. They weren't even called background singers; they were just called singers. I don't know who gave us the name 'background singers,' but I think that came about when The Blossoms started doing background.”

“If you listen to most songs, most people will not sing the words of the lead singer. They will sing the hook. The hook is what makes the record sell.”

“Your body knows how old you are, but if you keep on and you take care of yourself - you know, I go to kickboxing class every morning at 5 A.M. You know, try to do all the things to take care of the outside of your body, but you also should do - and have to do things that take care of the inside of your body.”

“The Blossoms were actually the first black background singers that did recording sessions in California, but we had to start giving work away. We just couldn't do it all.”

“The Blossoms had gotten so we were working seven days a week, three or four sessions a day, which was literally killing us, physically. With the instruments that the musicians play, they can do that, but not with us using our voices.”

“My pursuit was more in the music thing, so I never went out pursuing movies. It was more just pursuing my singing career because people came to me for singing more than they did for doing movies.”

“I get such joy out of performing for people, and you can tell whether they like you or they don't like you the minute you walk out on the stage. And they don't even have to tell me that they had a good time. I know they had a good time.”

“I think, for a long time, people thought I was a figment of Phil Spector's imagination because they knew The Crystals, they knew The Ronettes, they knew Bob B. Sox and the Blue Jeans, but had never had met Darlene Love.”

“I enjoyed every minute of what I was doing with sessions, because The Blossoms, the group that I was singing with, they were the first black background singers. There weren't any.”

“I've always wanted to work with Barbra Streisand because she's worked with some of the best background singers in the world who are friends of mine, worked with them in concert or on movie soundtracks, and I always say 'Now, where was I? Where was I when she was hiring people to work with her?'”

“'If I Can Dream' is my all-time favorite Elvis song. It was a big record, but not as big as it could have been. It was one of those records where you'd think it sold 10 billion copies, but it didn't.”