20 Feet from Stardom

Morgan Neville’s charming, fast-paced 2013 Academy Award-winning documentary shines a light on the unsung heroes of popular music — backup singers. Though their gospel-inflected voices helped define some of the biggest hits of the rock era, including power-voiced Darlene Love (The Crystals’ “He’s a Rebel”) and Merry Clayton’s soaring cautionary roar on the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” they have largely toiled in obscurity, except in music circles. It was late producer and A&M Records chairman Gil Friesen’s curiosity about them that inspired Neville’s cinematic quest, which presents these (mostly) women as not embittered but charming and grateful for the opportunities that have made them stars in the music community if not the public domain. — Doug Pullen