Twenty Feet from Stardom (2013)

Merry Clayton: Self

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Quotes 

• Merry Clayton : It was weird. It was happy, musically; but, it was a sad time... I think Clyde King called me for that session, she said, "You know, there's this guy's name is Lynyrd Skynyrd." I said, "Really?" She said, "Yes and he wants to do this song called, "Sweet Home Alabama". I said, "Alabama? Honey, nobody wants to sing anything about Alabama?" I certainly didn't want to sing anything about Alabama... My husband was 19 years older than I was. He said, "Oh, you need to sing, "Sweet Home, Alabama." And, I said, "Well, why?" He said, "You'll understand later in life." He said, "Right now you don't understand. Merry you're young. You don't really understand"... It was basically like a slap in the face. Ha-ha, Sweet Home Alabama. We got your sweet home, Alabama... Well, we gonna sing you anyway and we gonna sing the crap out of you.

• Merry Clayton : I just stay cool, stay hungry, and stay beautiful - and just do the work.

• Merry Clayton : So, it was like very late at night and I was very - you know, pregnant. I had curlers and the whole thing in my hair and I was ready to go to bed. And we got a call, "Merry, there's a group of guys in town called Rolling... Rolling Somebodies and they're from England and they need somebody that will sing with them." They picked me up, with silk pajamas on, a mink coat, and a Chanel scarf on my head... I said, "What? Rape. Murder. It's just a shot away." I started to sing, "Oh, children, It's just a shot away, It's just a shot away" with Mick... They said, "You want to do another one?" I said, "Sure, I'll do another one"... So, I said to myself, "Mm-hmm. I'm going to do another one. Blow them out of this room."

  [laughs] 

  Merry Clayton : I went it again and I did a pass on the the part that says, "Rape! Murder! It's just a shot away!" So, I had to go up another octave. Yeah!