ADDED: "Ronnie Spector, Ronettes Singer and Ultimate Girl-Group Icon, Dead at 78/'Her joyful sound, playful nature, and magical presence will live on in all who knew, heard, or saw her,' Spector’s family said of the 'Be My Baby' and 'Walking in the Rain' vocalist" (Rolling Stone).
“She will have her own place in history because there was nobody like her,” Darlene Love, who also worked with Spector in the early days, tells Rolling Stone. “When I first met her in 1964, she was this little bitty thing — she reminded me of a little Barbie doll. But then she had this big voice. The way she sang and moved onstage, that was rock & roll.”...
“As I said many times while he was alive, he was a brilliant producer, but a lousy husband,” [Ronnie Spector] said shortly after [Phil Spector] died last year. “Unfortunately, Phil was not able to live and function outside of the recording studio. Darkness set in, many lives were damaged. I still smile whenever I hear the music we made together, and always will. The music will be forever.”
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32 comments:
I just saw that before clicking over here.
'Oh oh oh oh ooooooh...'
sob, i liked her
Like Tina Turner, Ronnie owned her own era.
Ah well--a bitty thing with a big voice. OTOH those hip movements in the video would get her banned from Ed Sullivan!
Still it's a great song and a great record from a time when, along with the rest of her contemporaries, I thought the world was my oyster. Summer in the 60s--a great time to be alive.
Maybe the Grim Reaper has been picking off Motown's stars, but their wonderful music, and the memories that come with hearing it again and again, remains.
RIP
Loved her singing. "Be, my baby" is one of my favorite songs from the 60s. And yes, Phil was a "Bad Husband" oh, and a convicted murderer. But I suppose only the first is important.
BTW, I think that's my favorite Youtube version of the song.
"Just like Ronnie said, 'Be my little baby.'"
She was very pretty and had as many moves as the era allowed. I think she would have had a bigger career if she had come along a little later....Her hits endure, and she exited with fame and fortune. As Faustian bargains go, it wasn't the worst deal. She got Phil at his best as a recording producer but not quite at his absolute worst as a domestic abuser.
The Wall of Sound is reverberating throughout Heaven tonight. Rest in Peace, Ronnie.
When I read #7 "(The Best Part Of) Breakin' Up" a stray neuron fired off in my head, now the Folger's coffee jingle is stuck in my head.
Not of my time but one of those talents that bridges generations. Timeless is the only way to put it…
Keith Richards had an occasional relationship with her. It's clear from his memoir that he found some sort of inner peace (emotional rescue?) with her.
I was fortunate enough to see the Ronettes at a Murray The K revue at the Brooklyn Fox Theatre in the summer of 1965. What a great experience. I had a crush on Ronnie after seeing them live.
My life unchanged.
She did it all without autotune.
RIP Ronnie Spector.
So...everyone's dying at 78 now?
Good to know.
Hey, Althouse: Happy Birthday. I mean no disrespect in remembering the date. Quite the opposite.
reader_iam
You guys had fun in the Sixties. I was going to ask if you went to American Bandstand when it was in Philadelphia, but they moved to LA before your time, as well as before mine.
Ah man... this one hurts... Just heard the news & immediately came to your blog. I felt for sure you would post about her & you didn't let me down! I wasn't a teen then, but grew up listening & loving 60's music. Be My Baby in my top 10, but also loved her version of I Can Hear Music - especially one she did with Brian Wilson much later. https://youtu.be/xFNdYNEJ26s
When Brian Wilson was struggling, or just trying to find a harmony for one of his songs, he would play Be My Baby on a loop for hours on end. Wilson considered it the perfect harmony.
Be My Baby -- Girl offers triple lovin' -- Totally OK!
Baby It's Cold Outside -- Girl plays cat & mouse (but which is the cat?) -- Rape!
Got it.
@wild chicken
Better than 45.
'Wilson considered it the perfect harmony.'
He also had a lot of mental issues and a humongous drug problem.
So there's that...
Breakthrough sound and culture changing style.
Something in her voice invited everyone along, and you emotionally wanted to follow.
RIP
Besides the Ronnettes’ harmonies backing Ronnie on “Be My Baby”, The Wrecking Crew’s backing instruments were fantastic with Hal Blaine at his best on drums.
Why does something revolutionary—an era-disrupting new freedom—happen, and then stop happening?
In 1963, long before jumping the tracks, Phil Spector succeeded in his search for a singer who could reproduce Frankie Lyman’s voice—finding her in the same part of East Harlem that had produced Lyman—and launched Ronnie Bennett, along with her sister Estelle, and their cousin Nedra Talley—the Ronettes.
Their sound was at once warm and dark; their look a departure from the party dresses of the Shirelles and the Chiffons: Shiny black slit skirts, tight Capri pants. Hitter chicks, slightly scary—they glared straight out at the cameras through the mascara and eye-liner, leaving no doubt that the plea of “Be My Baby” was also a challenge, not to be accepted lightly.
Two decades later, Brian Wilson at his house in LA, sunk in madness and at a creative dead end after numerous hits, would replay the utterly uncanny stop-time break of “Be My Baby” repeatedly . . . for hours.
It’s not hard to imagine Wilson obsessively puzzling over the dark magic of Spector’s audacious pause. Why is that two-bar break such a killer? With Ronnie’s descending “woh-woh-woh-woh” cadence, the Wall of Sound stops dead at 2:06, and there’s just six pulses on the kick, snare, high-hat, and tambourine, repeating the opening figure from the first two bars. The storm of emotion simply leaves off: Is it a sob? A moment’s glimpse of the possibility of failure, of loss; a point at which the song's plea simply catches in the throat—at which we instinctually recognize that the voices are overcome?
The universe holds its breath: Boom—boom-boom—bap! Boom—boom-boom—bap! . . . and the Wall crashes down again. It's a moment that always gives one chills.
Ronnie was to undergo years of pain and abuse with Spector, and one can hardly ask whether it was worth it.
It’s all over now and the world is worse. Rock and soul and R&B no longer exist as genres, replaced by Auto-Tuned hominids and room-temperature indies, whose thin broth only confirms by contrast the loss of the feast that once existed.
Nothing for it but a drink and a smoke.
Good-bye, Ronnie. We won’t see your like again.
I love the way she smiled with her eyes in that video.
“I had a crush on Ronnie after seeing them live”
Same here just from seeing her on screen. Hot hot hot!
And Ozy, I agree with every syllable you wrote. The perfect reverb of that percussion Wall of Sound gives me chills and demands to be cranked up to eleven.
At least she'll get to spend eternity nowhere near Phil.
>>So...everyone's dying at 78 now?
Better than 27, I guess. Which gives me another nine years. Althouse only six. But we're not singers, so who knows?
--gpm
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