From KCRW, Santa Monica and KCRW.com, this is The Treatment.

Welcome to the treatment. I'm Elvis Mitchell. My guest director, Morgan Neville, has made a documentary 20 feet from Startham that

had quite a run at festivals last year, including a terrific bit at the South by Southwest

Film Festival that included an accompanying concert, and the film is also an Oscar nominee. And

it is not only a look at the role of the backup singer, but I think a really important look at African-American cultural history.

Morgan, it's such a pleasure to have you on.

Thanks for having me.

I like the fact that it deals with a kind of empowerment,

but it's also a look at black cultural history,

and it's also a look at black irony,

and hearing Mary Clayton talking about singing on Leonard Skinett's Sweet Home Alabama and then

seeing her doing her cover of New Young Southern Man. You got to talk to me about just that connection

putting these things together. I love it. You know, I mean, Sweet Home Alabama, it's a song, you know,

that celebrates a certain kind of Confederate state of mind,

I guess. And, you know, Mary Clayton in our film, a legendary backup singer, had been called

to do this session. And when they called her, first they said, you know, there's a band called

Leonard Skinnerd. And she said, who's he? And he said, no, no, it's a band. There's a song called Sweet Home Alabama.

She's like, wait, Alabama.

I'm not singing about Alabama.

And her husband, who was Curtis Amy, amazing sax player, jazz player, and later Ray Charles

bandleader, he was older than her and convinced her that by doing the best she could do,

regardless of the context, was making its own statement about her own voice and the voice of all

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