Diva Gray
Behind a great many disco records is a singer nobody printed on the sleeve, and Diva Gray was one of the best of them. She sang backing vocals behind Chic alongside Luther Vandross and Robin Clark, and she moved through the same New York session circles in Change and in Lemon, the latter with Lani Groves, Gordon Grody, Vandross, David Lasley and Kenny Lehman. She also sang in The Harlettes, Bette Midler's backing group, with Ula Hedwig and Jocelyn Brown.
Under her own name she recorded the album Hotel Paradise for Columbia, produced by Luigi Ojival, and the single Saint Tropez, credited to Diva Gray and Oyster, was a hit on the French charts.
Her screen credits are the visible edge of all that studio work: The Harlettes on stage in the Bette Midler concert film Divine Madness, a nanny in the 1996 musical comedy Everyone Says I Love You, a choir singer in A Walk to Remember. She died on 19 November 2024 at the age of 72.
Movies (3)
Where to start with Diva Gray
Go to Divine Madness first, the only credit here that shows her doing the job she was actually hired for. It is a Bette Midler concert film, The Harlettes are right there behind her, and it captures the specific labour of backing vocals in a way no studio recording can.
The other two are appearances rather than performances. Everyone Says I Love You places her in a musical where most of the cast sings badly on purpose, which is its own strange thing to be inside. A Walk to Remember puts her in the choir. If you want to hear the voice properly, the disco and session records are the place, not the films.