Here's an interesting quote by Jagger re: the background singer on "Gimme Shelter", Mary Clayton.
Jagger: "That song was written during the Vietnam War and so it's very much about the awareness that war is always present; it was very present in life at that point. Mary Clayton who did the backing vocals, was a background singer who was known to one of the producers. Suddenly, we wanted someone to sing in the middle of the night. And she was around. She came with her curlers in, straight from bed, and had to sing this really odd lyric. For her it was a little odd - for anyone, in the middle of the night, to sing this one verse I would have been odd. She was great."
Mary Clayton was a Gospel singer who did backup vocals for various artists, including Ray Charles. She had a regular role on the '80s TV show Cagney and Lacey, and played a maid in the movie Maid To Order. She released her own version of this song.
Thank you so much-I did not know that about the song, but I always have liked the plaintive tone of it. MrT5, who has been gone four years now, was a career Army officer, and he first started liking the Stones in ‘Nam-didn’t they all?