There are many reasons why Darlene Love is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, from her session work with super producer Phil Spector’s stable of superstars, to singing lead on such smashes as The Crystals’ “He’s A Rebel” and “He’s Sure The Boy I Love,” to remaining a annual holiday staple for well over six decades, thanks in part to the sheer timelessness of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).”

Though there isn’t a season that goes by when the 84-year-old artist, Broadway/movie actress and animal rescue advocate isn’t singing somewhere, the snowiest one is an especially busy stretch, including the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday, November 27 and “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” on Thursday, December 18.

In between, the legend is even appearing locally at the Arcada Theatre in St. Charles on Tuesday, December 2 as part of her “Love For The Holidays” Tour, which as she tells Chicago Concert Reviews during a warm and widespread conversation, will feature a festive overview dating back to the early 1960s.

Does anything come to mind on your way to the Chicago area?

Darlene Love: It’s amazing. I haven’t been in Illinois in a while. A few years ago, I came there to perform for the Christmas tree lighting. I know how cold it gets there, so I’m prepared with my coats, gloves and my hats (laughs).

What is on the agenda for your show at the Arcada Theatre?

Love: I get to bring all my Christmas songs that I recorded on the Phil Spector Christmas album, [“A Christmas Gift For You From Philles Records”]. It’s such a joy to do those songs cause I only get to do them at Christmastime, so it’s not like I really get tired of singing them. I also have some gospel songs I do, and of course, I have all the oldies that I recorded.

Can you give us a little slice about being in the studio while you were recording the project and how it changed the course of Christmas music history?

Love: It was really great and it wasn’t great because we didn’t actually know what Phil Spector was getting ready to do. He just said, “We’re gonna do a rock and roll Christmas album.” Nobody had every done anything like that before. They recorded singles, but not an album, and when Phil decided that’s what he was going to do, we went into the studio and started doing that. I remember it vividly because there was a heat wave going on in California at the time. It was around July and it was really hot. Here we were in the studio trying to sing Christmas songs in 105 degrees, so Phil made the studio almost like freezing cold. That was just mad because we couldn’t sing when it’s that cold! It’s hard on your vocal chords. He got Christmas trees, and lights, and hung ‘em up in the studio and that’s how we ended up recording the Christmas album. It was really great because Phil Spector used all the same musicians for the whole album and he used The Blossoms, the group I was singing with. My group and I did all the background for everything on that Christmas album, so it was a lot of work, but we managed (laughs).

It’s amazing because nobody was doing it. Christmas songs [were] sort of done like sacred songs [at that time], so nobody was thinking about signing a rock and roll Christmas album. That was all in Phil Spector’s head. He asked me what Christmas songs I would like to sing and I told him, so we did mine, and one by one, everybody got into the studio and recorded. We did all the music and the background singing before Ronnie Spector [from The Ronettes] or La La Brooks [from The Crystals] to get it done. I think it took us about a month-and-a-half to get all the music down on it, so during that time, we all became really close, good friends. We had breakfast together, lunch together, dinner together, [then] came back to the studio and started all over again.

Your biggest hit from that album, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” is one of the most iconic songs ever, holiday or otherwise. What do you attribute to its endurance?

Love: It was one-of-a-kind and I think people were just ready to hear a new Christmas song, rather than “Silent Night,” “Winter Wonderland” or any of those. It didn’t catch on right away because during the time that we recorded, President [John F.] Kennedy got assassinated, so Phil Spector didn’t put that album out right away. He put it out the following year because he didn’t think anyone would be ready or do any kind of Christmas holiday music at that time. Phil would still put that single out even though he wasn’t putting out the album, and over time, the song just caught on. It was very slow getting there, but once it caught on maybe ten years later, everybody wanted to hear it every Christmas, and so here we are 60 years later, and the record is bigger than ever.

How would you describe your relationship with the song and has it changed at any point?

Love: No, I do that song exactly the way it was recorded. I didn’t change it at all. I sing it exactly the same on stage as when we recorded it because it’s not missing anything. It has everything in it that you need for a great song. It’s changed, maybe, when people make it a different meaning. Who am I talking to? Who am I singing that song to? If anything, that has really taken on a life of its own.

What was it like re-recording the track several occasions, especially when you backed up U2 and did a duet with Cher?

Love: It’s amazing because with U2, they wanted to record it and they wanted me to record do all the background. I did all three parts of harmony on that song and I never got a chance to meet them because they recorded in another studio. I came along later after they finished it and put the background on it. Most of the people that I’ve been involved with [relating to] that song, I have actually met, but to this day, I have never met U2. But I think it’s one of the great versions of it because it was unlike everybody else’s. Everybody else that recorded it sort of recorded it the way I did, but when they recorded it, they did it in the U2 fashion.

A couple years ago, Cher said she wanted to record “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” and that was another thing where technology has gotten so great now. I went into the studio and recorded my part here in New York. Then she put her voice on it later in California. We didn’t get together until maybe a month [later for] the [Rockefeller Center] Christmas tree lighting and singing it for this show or that show. It was amazing that little rush that came…It was all very exciting because I got to spend some time with her. She came to New York. We spent some time with her in the hotel, just laughing, and talking, and reminiscing, so it was a chance to get back together again after all those years.

Do you have any thoughts on performing it on the upcoming Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and “The Tonight Show?”

Love: I did the parade during the pandemic, but they didn’t want me to sing “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).” I actually sang “White Christmas,” so I will be singing in the parade “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) for the first time! The other times I did not do that song. And we did it with [“The Tonight Show”] last year, so we’re very excited to do it with Jimmy Fallon again this year.

Can you give us a preview of the docuseries you have in the works?

Love: We’ve planned to create it for some time now and some gentlemen from Canada came up with the idea [to] go from the beginning to the end, because my life, chronologically, has never been told. We told it in the book, [1998’s “My Name Is Love”], but then the book ended before the rest of my life, so it’s time to do another book, and with the documentary coming out, we’re hoping it will all be a success.

A lot happened since then, such as being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Take us back to that milestone.

Love: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was really wonderful because I had done the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 25th anniversary. Bruce Springsteen, actually, called me and asked me to do it. This was before I got inducted, and Bruce said when he called me, “It’s about time you get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so we’re gonna be doing all we can to get you inducted.” That was really great. Not only did I get to sing with Bruce one of my songs, which is “A Fine, Fine Boy,” I found out that Bruce sings that song in his regular show, so that was amazing to do.

You’ve frequently appeared alongside Bruce & The E Street Band, including Steven Van Zandt’s recent 75th birthday celebration. Tell us a bit about those relationships and how they have expressed their appreciation of your work.

Love: They are such fans of Phil Spector’s music, period. They said that they always knew there was a voice that stuck out in that group of singers that Phil Spector had and they weren’t sure who it was. Maybe it was one of The Crystals, or one of The Ronettes, or someone, but when they finally found out it was Darlene Love, they just hung onto that. We met up over 40 years ago in Los Angeles and it’s so wonderful with them. When they get ready to do something and they think it’s a great thing to do, he picks up the phone and asks me to do it. I’m probably one of the very few people who has Bruce Springsteen’s phone number (laughs).

Along the lines of what they were wondering, why were your lead vocals used on some of The Crystals’ biggest hits, despite not being a member of the group?

Love: All those people were a part of Phil Spector’s label: The Crystals, The Ronettes, Bob B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans, Darlene Love, The Righteous Brothers. The Crystals’ family would not allow them to fly to Los Angeles, California to record with Phil. That’s the biggest reason I ended up singing “He’s A Rebel,” “Da Doo Ron Ron” and “He’s Sure The Boy I Love” because he couldn’t get them to California. I was a big background singer then. That’s when I made my biggest dent on music, with The Righteous Brothers, Sam Cooke, Dionne Warwick, Tom Jones. Just name ‘em, I did all of their recording sessions and I actually worked with them also on stage, so that’s how that all started. Phil Spector, he didn’t change my name until much later. He’s the reason why my name is Darlene Love today, cause he changed my name, but everybody else, they were already on his label. He needed background singers. He needed musicians. Therefore The Blossoms were there, so that’s the reason why we got to sing all those songs.

It would’ve been nice if they put your name on them at that time, although it’s since become widespread knowledge, especially after it was explained in the “20 Feet From Stardom” film. What was your reaction to the crediting, or rather, lack thereof?

Love: Well, I would agree with you today. It was like Phil didn’t know if the records would be as big a hit as they were. He had The Crystals and they had semi-hits already, so he wanted to use a group name he felt [would be more familiar to the public]. He didn’t think about the change of the name. I guess he just felt like he could use [the songs] any kind of way he wanted to because he owned them on records. So today, I’m glad it happened when it did. I think it was time for it to happen. I moved to New York and I started singing those songs. People wanted to know why and I said, “Well, because I’m the one who recorded them.” (Laughs).

Why did you temporarily go on hiatus after that initial period and what brought you back in the 1980s, primarily as a solo artist?

Love: I stepped away because I was tired of being gone. During that time, I was still doing the back-ups and I had been signing for Dionne Warwick, who is a very good friend of mine. I worked for Dionne for ten years. I worked for Tom Jones for two years. I worked for Elvis [Presley] for one year. During that time, I just really got tired of being away from my children. They were still young, under the age of ten, and I wanted to be back around them again, so I said “I’m gonna stop doing this. Let me go back home and see what I can do about getting a solo career going.”

Sometimes I think I waited too long, because when I came back, the background business had changed. There weren’t any more background sessions. What was happening then, all the record companies, if they had a band or whatever, the band did their own signing, so they didn’t need me as much as they did ten years ago. I couldn’t find a job anywhere at that time, so I started cleaning houses, which there’s nothing wrong with that. It was a living. I had three boys to feed (laughs), so I needed to find a job and it just so happened one Christmas I was in Beverly Hills working and my record “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” came on the radio. I said, “Okay there’s a reason for this. There’s a reason for me hearing this song at this time,” so back into the business I went. I just never looked back.

Around the same time, what led you to make the jump from music to acting, and even within that, going from Broadway to the movies?

Love: I started working in New York and I started doing Broadway shows. I didn’t think they would have [me] cause they didn’t have rock and roll on Broadway yet, but the first really rock and roll [show] they had on Broadway was “Leader Of The Pack.” While I was working on those shows, the casting director for “Lethal Weapon” was in the show, was a fan and asked me if I’d like to be in movies. I said, “Why not?” So I think everything happens for a reason. I was in the right place at the right time for everything that happened to me. All I can do is give God thanks and praise for that.

What did you take away from being in the “Lethal Weapon” series?

Love: It was just another part of my life. I wasn’t really looking to become a movie star or take movies as a way of making a living. I was still on my way to making my livelihood out of music, so it was just like a stop along the way that was a gift for me and it worked out. The four movie series ended up being big hits and I was a part of that, which I was very proud of the fact. I think it was all a gift and it was supposed to happen. I pursued each one of those, and when that one was over, I kept right on pursuing my signing career.

How did you find your way back to the studio for 2015’s “Introducing Darlene Love”?

Love: That was great because Stevie Van Zandt had already promised me that he was going to take me into the studio and record. We laughed because we didn’t know it was going to take 30 years (laughs). We were working at B.B. King’s [Blues Club], and Stevie came to the show and said, “What are you guys doing tomorrow?” We said “nothing.” He said, “Yes, we are going into the studio and we’re going to record this album. Let’s hope and pray that Bruce doesn’t call us to go back to work before we finish” (laughs). And we did!

Outside of music, you’re very involved in Louie’s Legacy Animal Rescue. What message relating to pet adoption and advocacy would you like to share with your fans?

Love: It’s amazing because I’ve always had a dog. The last dog me and my husband had lived 19 years, so it was amazing. When we lost him, I wanted to get another one right away, but it took us about five years to make up our minds to get a dog. But that was just magic because there’s a famous photographer, [Mike Ruiz], who takes pictures of mutts and muscles. He wanted to put me in the [Rescue Me 2026 calendar] and I asked him about it. “Can I get one of those dogs? And he said, “We’d love for you to have one. We’re trying to get people to adopt dogs.”

This dog came from Texas and he was in that bad flood that they had there. I thought, “I’m not gonna go and look for a dog that costs 10,000 dollars, and raise him from a puppy and take care of him. Let me just get a dog that needs me.” This dog needed me and I needed him. His name is Fred and he is the best dog. He’s been here now almost three months. He really has become a part of the family. I think if you want to have a dog that’s really a great dog, from what I have and what people have told me about rescue dogs, they are humble and sweet. They got thrown out of the situation they were in to get adopted into another home, so it’s almost like you’re rescuing a child, only it’s a dog, and they are so grateful. I just love him and I can’t believe we went this long without having one, but he is a sweetheart and he does everything you ask him to do…

Besides being with your new dog and going on tour, how do you plan to spend the holidays?

Love: My family comes here every other Christmas and this Christmas is their turn. They come here about four or five days before Christmas, spend Christmas with me and then they go back home after Christmas. I try to go there every other year, so it’s been working out great!

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Darlene Love performs at the Arcada Theatre on Tuesday, December 2. For additional details, visit DarleneLoveWorld.com and ArcadaLive.com.