Cert 12A
90 mins
BBFC advice: Contains infrequent strong language
In the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the quality of the backing singers could give the extra lift a record needed to make it a hit.
But what prevented most of these brilliant, predominantly black vocalists becoming solo stars?
Morgan Neville's Oscar-winning documentary goes a long way to answering this question by interviewing the singers and many of the superstars with whom they have worked.
The latter include Mick Jagger, Sting and Bruce Springsteen who all pay huge compliments to the vocalists.
Meanwhile, there is a wonderful array of archive footage ranging back to the early 1960s and including an appearance of Luther Vandross as one of the voices on David Bowie's Young Americans.
It is a story which mixes heartbreak and triumph and simultaneously provides a chronology of rock and pop which any music fan will lap up.
But most of all there is some utterly fantastic singing from the likes of Darlene Love, who led the first big backing singers The Blossoms, Merry Clayton and Judith Hill who was on the cusp of stardom with Michael Jackson but he died before she could perform with him at the scheduled 02 Arena concerts.
I'm not sure that 20 Feet From Stardom deserved to beat Act Of Killing to the documentary Oscar but it is, nevertheless, very very good.
Laughs: none
Jumps: none
Vomit: none
Nudity: none
Overall rating: 9/10