How A Late-Night Phone Call In 1969 Led To One Of The Rolling Stones' Most Legendary Vocal Moments

The call from the Rolling Stones came around midnight in late 1969. Merry Clayton, who had already begun to make a name for herself as a background singer with a powerful, unmistakable voice, was trying to sleep. She was also very pregnant, which made that ringing telephone all the more unwelcome. The caller? Producer Jack Nitzsche, asking Clayton to come into a Los Angeles studio for a late-night recording session with the Rolling Stones, though Clayton hadn't really heard of them. She and her husband, Curtis May, were initially skeptical, but May eventually encouraged his wife to go in for a short session. When a limo came to collect her, she elected to stay in her comfortable silk pajamas. 

At the studio, she met with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who explained the concept of their new tragedy-tinged song, "Gimme Shelter." Though the lyrics initially put her off, after some explaining from Richards and Jagger, she thought "Gimme Shelter" could be something important. As she told AV Club in 2013, she thought, "This is going to be wonderful. I wonder if they know this [is] a protest song. They probably don't.'"

Sitting down because of her pregnancy, she let loose with a legendary take that included a now-iconic break in her voice (followed by Jagger's excited exclamation, still audible if you listen closely). Years later, Clayton remembered her state of mind during the session, in which she was considering the ongoing strife in the world, from civil rights struggles to the Vietnam War. "I guess that scream and that strain on my voice just cracked like a cry to the world," she recalled. Released on the Rolling Stones LP "Let It Bleed," "Gimme Shelter" became one of the sickest album openers in rock history.

Not long after she left the studio, Clayton had a miscarriage, which she blamed on wrangling heavy studio doors and singing so intensely (though research indicates physical activity is not generally linked to miscarriage). For a while, she had difficulty even hearing "Gimme Shelter." Nonetheless, Clayton went on to release a cover of "Gimme Shelter" in 1970, in yet another entry on a long musical path that began with her singing in her family's church and continued with a burgeoning career in Los Angeles.

Clayton's work on "Gimme Shelter" opened up more career opportunities, but that wasn't always entirely satisfying for her, as when she sang backup on Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama." She recalled thinking, "I really don't want to sing anything about Alabama after what happened in Alabama," referencing some particularly painful memories of events that occurred there during the Civil Rights Movement (via NPR). She also never mentioned she'd covered Neil Young's "Southern Man," which Lynyrd Skynyrd sourly references in "Sweet Home Alabama." As she told The New York Times, "I didn't think it was wise."

Clayton was in a 2014 car accident that necessitated the amputation of both legs, but it was hardly over for her. She sang from her hospital bed as soon as she was told her voice was unaffected and released an album, "Beautiful Scars," in 2021.