The 2 a.m. Session That Gave 'Gimme Shelter' Its Iconic Female Vocal

The first Rolling Stones song to feature a female backing vocalist was “Gimme Shelter,” recorded for their 1969 album Let It Bleed. Producer Jack Nitzsche called in Merry Clayton, a 20-year-old session singer who had worked with Ray Charles and Tom Jones, to add a soulful counterpoint to Mick Jagger’s lead vocal.

Clayton was woken up at 2:00 a.m. and summoned to the studio still in her pajamas and curlers. She delivered the spine-tingling “Rape, murder, it’s just a shot away” line in one take—her voice cracks on the word “murder” when she pushed too hard. The Stones kept it. She was also pregnant at the time, and later miscarried, which some fans connected to the emotional intensity of the session, though no medical link was ever confirmed.