My Name Is Love: The Darlene Love Story

After singing lead vocal on the number one single ""He's a Rebel,"" in 1962 (recorded under the name the Crystals), 21-year-old Love hoped that her producer, Phil Spector, would nurse her talent into stardom. Unfortunately for Love, Spector believed vocals were just one more cog in his musical Wall of Sound. Although she sang classics like ""Today I Met the Boy I'm Going to Marry"" and ""Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),"" by 1964 Love was well on her way to becoming ""the most overqualified backup singer in the business."" Hers is a sassy tale of a revered industry survivor who has watched contemporaries such as Tina, Aretha and Cher score comebacks while she sings backup for them. After 30 lucrative years literally singing in the background, she hoped for a revival of her own. Considered a relic in her 40s, she had to resort to cleaning houses to pay the rent. Cruise-ship gigs and a couple of failed musicals (Leader of the Pack and Carrie) brought her attention but no recording contract. While a comeback still eludes the singer, her story has a happy ending: in 1997, a New York jury awarded her $263,000 in back royalties from Spector. Years of touring with Dionne Warwick (""always a patsy for the tea-leaf readers of the world"") and Tom Jones (""the conveyor belt [of women] to his room) offer her a cavalcade of stars to dissect, dote on or skewer in illuminating, entertaining portraits. Her sardonic observations border on the hilarious. Love is not afraid to speak her mind, and co-author Rob Hoerburger has polished those anecdotes to perfection. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct.)