Merry Clayton vs. the Ikettes: How the Stones Used Gospel-Soul Backing Vocals

The most famous single cameo by a female backing vocalist on a Rolling Stones record is Merry Clayton’s wailing, climactic part on “Gimme Shelter” (1969). But that was a one-off emergency booking—Clayton was pulled out of bed at midnight, drove to the studio in curlers, and laid down two takes for a flat fee of $2,000. The Stones didn’t have a standing female vocal group like Ike and Tina Turner’s Ikettes, who worked as a permanent, rotating ensemble that toured, recorded, and appeared on TV as part of the Ike Turner machine. The Ikettes weren’t just harmony singers; they were choreographed dancers and a branding tool for Ike’s production.

The Stones’ use of female backing vocals was situational, often drawn from gospel-trained session singers such as Doris Troy, Vanetta Fields, and Clydie King on records like “Brown Sugar” and “Wild Horses.” They never employed a house female chorus the way the Rolling Stones’ British peers did—Dusty Springfield rarely used a fixed group, but the Spencer Davis Group and early Fleetwood Mac occasionally brought in session women. Where the Stones arguably leaned hardest into appropriation was in their energy: they borrowed the call-and-response structure and raw, sanctified sound of gospel and soul without ever building a relationship with the black vocal tradition beyond the studio. Meanwhile, the Ikettes were part of a living, touring soul revue that originated in church and R&B clubs. The difference is between borrowing a voice and living inside a tradition.