Thursday March 11, 2021 “He’s a Rebel” Darlene Love

As we celebrate women we have a woman whose musical successes remained uncelebrated for too long a time.

 Those who remember "He's a Rebel;" a number one song, might have it in their mind that it was sung by the Crystals, nope. Although it would be credited to the Crystals the song was actually recorded by Darlene Love.

 “He’s a Rebel” was written by Gene Pitney, a successful singer/songwriter himself, and it was produced by Phil Spector who needed a follow-up song for his girl group the Crystals who had just scored a top ten hit with “Uptown” but were unavailable to travel to the west coast to record the song.

Spector had recently signed L.A. singer Darlene Wright (Love) and he enlisted her to do the lead vocals for this song as the “Crystals” and then do another  "Crystals" follow-up to “He’s a Rebel” called  “He’s Sure the Boy I Love”. And then Darlene Love became the Blossoms and then she became Bobby Sox & the Blue Jeans all of whom scored major hits but no one outside of the record industry had any idea who Darlene Love was.

 Soon a sought after background singer Darlene Love would sing on iconic hit records by:  Sam Cooke, Dionne Warwick, Bill Medley, the Beach Boys, Elvis Presley, Tom Jones, Sonny and Cher, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Rivers, the Ronettes and U2 and so many more.

 Some forty plus years after her first recording as the ‘Crystals’, Darlene Love recorded an album/CD Introducing Darlene Love which featured new songs by Bruce Springsteen, Steve Van Zandt and Elvis Costello.  She also has two of the most popular Christmas songs of all time “All Alone for Christmas'' from the Home Alone 2 movie and “Christmas Baby (Please Come Home)”.

 Stay safe and well...and Darlene Love also played Danny Glover’s wife in all of the Lethal Weapon movies.

See the way he walks down the street

Watch the way he shuffles his feet

My, he holds his head up high

When he goes walking by, he's my guy

 When he holds my hand, I'm so proud

'Cause he's not just one of the crowd

My baby's always the one to try

the things they've never done

And just because of that, they say

 He's a rebel and he'll never ever be any good

He's a rebel 'cause he never ever does what he should

But just because he doesn't do what everybody else does

That's no reason why I can't give him all my love

 He's always good to me, always treats me tenderly

'Cause he's not a rebel, oh, no, no, no

He's not a rebel, oh, no, no, no, to me

 If they don't like him that way

They won't like me after today

I'll be standing right by his side when they say

 He's a rebel and he'll never ever be any good

He's a rebel 'cause he never ever ever does what he should

Just because he doesn't do what everybody else does

That's no reason why we can't share a love

 He's always good to me, good to him, I try to be

'Cause he's not a rebel, oh, no, no, no

He's not a rebel, oh, no, no, no, to me

 Oh, he's not a rebel, oh, no, no, no

He's not a rebel, oh, no, no, no

He's not a rebel, oh, no, no, no

He's not a rebel, oh, no, no, no

 He's not a rebel, oh, no, no, no

He's not a rebel, oh, no, no, no

He's not a rebel, oh, no, no, no

He's not a rebel, oh, no, no, no