Overview

Documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville often focuses on the music world, often on overlooked elements or stories underlying the familiar. In this film, which received the Best Feature Documentary Oscar in 2013, he focuses on backup singers, who many neglect and don’t notice in the shadow of the featured artist despite playing a crucial role to almost any performance. Neville interviews a handful of backup singer veterans to supplement concert footage and tell the history of singers, often African-American, who stand, as the title puts it, literally steps away from fame.