Merry Clayton Gets Some Shelter

By Harvey Kubernik

Merry Clayton was born on Christmas Day. Before Clayton's torrid vocal chords were paired to those of Mick Jagger on the Rolling Stones' socio-political anthem "Gimme Shelter" from their epochal Let It Bleed album, she had already shared a microphone with Bobby Darin, Pearl Bailey and was a member of the Ray Charles' Raelettes from 1966-1968. During her studio career Clayton has sung backup on records with Elvis Presley, Joe Cocker, Phil Ochs and Burt Bacharach. Clayton is one of the featured lead voices on a monumental rendition of Bob Dylan's "All Along The Watchtower," off the stellar Dylan's Gospel album Lou Adler produced with the Brothers and Sisters studio collective.

Actually, Clayton's formal introduction to the Rolling Stones began a half a decade earlier in 1964 when the band, along with their brilliant manager/record producer, Andrew Loog Oldham, were newly arrived in Hollywood, The lads attended a Jack Nitzsche-produced session at the legendary RCA Recording studios where Clayton was tracking with Edna Wright, Darlene Love's sister on the date. Oldham and the Stones were driven to RCA by Sonny Bono, then working for Phil Spector.

It was Oldham, then a fan of Nitzsche, who wanted to meet and see Jack in action. Before he discovered the Rolling Stones, Andrew had produced a 1964 session with John Baldwin, (then quickly re-named John Paul Jones, before his Led Zeppelin career) on a re-make of Nitzsche's "Baja," the flip side of Jack's 45RPM instrumental anthem, "The Lonely Surfer."

"Sonny Bono took us for a ride to the RCA studios on Sunset in Hollywood. That afternoon I met three important elements in the Stones recording future: Jack Nitzsche, Dave Hassinger and the RCA studio itself," offered Andrew Loog Oldham in his splendid 2Stoned autobiography.  "Jack gave us the understanding of tone. Which tone fits the universe? Which thing was hummable in the street? Jack Nitzsche had the ability to sit and to figure it out, to get to the square root of the sound."

"I met the Stones in 1964," Nitzsche told me in an interview for Goldmine magazine. "Andrew Loog Oldham called me up. He and the group had just met Phil Spector in England and wanted to meet me. Brian Jones was in a three-piece suit and tie. They saw me work with Edna and Merry Clayton at RCA. A little later, the Stones started working at RCA and it had a big impact on me. A whole new way of approaching records. I was used to a three-hour record date, and they were block-booking twenty-four hours a day for two weeks, and doing what they wanted. I liked going to the Hollywood Ranch market with Keith (Richards) when he was in town. I later went to England to see the film ‘Performance' when Mick (Jagger) came to me about doing the soundtrack. They were doing the Let It Bleed album. When I was in London, the apartment they got me was right around the corner from where Keith was living with Anita (Pallenberg)."            

In 1969, the Stones had already prepared the basic rhythm track for "Gimme Shelter" in England at the famed Olympic Studios with engineer George Chkiantz. Later in '69, Keith and Mick returned to the same Elektra Studios with engineer Bruce Botnick, well known for his visionary technical talents behind the dials on albums with Love, Buffalo Springfield and the Doors.

"Gimme Shelter" songwriters Mick and Keith along with Miller, then huddled during their October 18-27 Southern California visit just before the Stones embarked on a U.S. tour in November '69.

Nitzsche, an omnipresent figure and regular Stones' session collaborator on over a half a dozen previous albums with the band, inherently felt that a female singer should join Jagger on the lead vocal for "Gimme Shelter." Initially, Mick, Keith and Jimmy had intended to utilize Bonnie Bramlett of Delaney & Bonnie, but she wasn't available, possibly due to illness. Nitzsche then suggested Clayton for the bioregional verbal slot to augment the hypnotic and weaving guitar efforts of Keith, who sang on the recording as well, along with the propulsive contributions from drummer Charlie Watts, bassist Bill Wyman and Nicky Hopkins on piano.   

"Jack called me at home from the studio in the Los Angeles area one night where I lived with my husband, Curtis Amy," recalls the still awe-inspiring Clayton. (Amy, was a legendary jazz musician himself, known for his classic album with Dupree Bolton, Katanga!  In 1968, Curtis took the sax solo on the Doors' hit "Touch Me.")

"Jack called our home and Curtis told him I was just about ready to go to sleep. See, I was pregnant, but Jack insisted that he had to talk to me about this Stones' session immediately as I was about to go to sleep. Curtis then woke me up. Jack was on the line. ‘Merry, I really need you to do this part. There is no other singer who can do this. Please.' I always loved Jack, like Lou Adler, he always took a chance on me, and I worked with Jack on the ‘Performance' soundtrack he did and I had worked with Jack earlier on a record he did with Neil Young in 1968 or ‘69. I was really tired that night, but I got up, put on my coat, got in the car with Curtis and we drove up La Cienega from L.A. to Hollywood later that evening where the studio was located."        

When she arrived, Clayton was warmly greeted by Keith, and then checked out Jagger in the flesh. "Man, I thought you was a man, but you nothing but a skinny little boy!"

"They played me the song and asked if I could put a little somethin' on it...I said, stop the song and tell me what all this stuff meant before I went any further. ‘It's just a shout or shot away' was something in the lyrics. I said, ‘I'm gonna put my vocal on it and I'm gonna leave. ‘Cause this is a real high part and I will be wettin' myself if I sing any higher!' ‘Cause my stomach was a little bit heavy."

"So, we went in and did it. Matter of fact, I did it three times. I didn't do an overdub. Mick's vocal was already on it when I heard it and I recall he did a bit of touching up after I left. But they got what they wanted. ‘It was so nice meeting you guys.' ‘Oh Merry you sound incredible. We just love you. We're gonna work with you...' I was walkin' out the door as they were talkin'. ‘OK. ‘Love you guys, too! See you some other time.' And I got in the car with my husband who took me right home and I went right upstairs to bed. And that was the ‘Gimme Shelter' session." Hearing Clayton's voice along with Jagger on the  "Gimme Shelter" recording, Merry Clayton is both audio witness and temptation partner. 

Just before her vocal chores were recorded that evening, Clayton, no rookie in the music business, had politely voiced some traditional concerns about payment procedure and credit for her work that night. Very swiftly the Stones' legal team generated recording agreement paperwork that now requested her coveted autograph for the booking.  "Next thing I knew, lawyers had talked and everything was cool. And, it was a go on the record. Then immediately I heard it on the radio in Los Angeles. It's a powerful track," admits Merry.  

"My dad, who was a Bishop, heard it and said, ‘Merry, what is this line in the song about rape and murder?' ‘Well dad, that's part of the song.' And he laughed...'Boy, they're really singing them different these days.' Cause I call him Reverend Doctor Daddy. ‘You know they're singing them different these days and that's what it is.' "Well you know, just remember one thing, Remember as you go out there on the road and travel on the road with the Rollin' Cockers, ‘cause I worked with Joe Cocker, too, so he could never get the names together. ‘Just remember when you are out there with the Rollin' Cockers Daddy is prayin' for you.' Oh daddy, I need that so bad. Thank you so much. ‘And do it while you're young ‘cause when you get older you're not going to run up and down the road.' My father always encouraged me to do things with class, dignity and integrity," reinforced Clayton.   

Subsequently, Lou Adler produced a version of "Gimme Shelter" with Clayton herself in 1970 for his Ode Records label, and then one of Clayton's next phone calls was for some backgrounds vocals on Adler's 1971 production of the Carole King Tapestry album. 

"In a way, maybe when you write songs without even knowing it, you're kinda saying, ‘Can I do this live?' And so in a way you add that in," Keith Richards told me in an interview last decade. "And so in a way you add that in. You don't know if it's gonna work, but I guess what you keep in the back of your mind is, ‘We're making a record here; what happens if they all like it and we gotta play it live?' So, in a way, maybe in the back of the mind that sets up the song to be playable on stage," he concluded.