Ronnie Spector

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Ronnie Spector bigraphy, stories - American singer

Ronnie Spector : biography

August 10, 1943 –

Ronnie Spector (born Veronica Yvette Bennett, August 10, 1943) is an American rock and roll and popular music vocalist. She was lead singer of the 1960s hit-making girl group, the Ronettes. She has been called the original "bad girl of rock and roll". by Patrick Donovan (April 12, 2006) theage.com.au – The Vocal Group Hall of Fame Foundation vocalgroup.org

Ronettes and solo album discography

  • The Ronettes Featuring Veronica, 1961
  • The Fabulous Ronettes Featuring Veronica, 1965
  • Siren, 1980
  • The Ronettes Greatest Hits – Volume 1, 1981
  • The Ronettes Greatest Hits – Volume 2, 1981
  • Unfinished Business, 1987
  • The Best of The Ronettes, 1992
  • She Talks to Rainbows EP, 1999
  • Something’s Gonna Happen, 2003
  • Last of the Rock Stars, 2006

Personal life

She was born Veronica Yvette Bennett in New York City. From an early age, she took to singing, encouraged by her large, close family. The other members of the Ronettes, her sister, Estelle Bennett (1941-2009), and cousin, Nedra Talley, were also encouraged to sing by their family. The Ronettes were a multiracial group. The Bennetts’ mother was African-American and Cherokee, and their father was Irish; their cousin, Nedra Talley, is African-American, Cherokee and Puerto Rican.

Bennett was married to Phil Spector from 1968 to 1974, and took his name professionally; they adopted three children, including a set of twins:

  • Donté Phillip (b. March 23, 1969; adopted November 1969, aged 8 months)
  • Louis Phillip (b. May 12, 1966; adopted at the age of 5)
  • Gary Phillip (b. May 12, 1966; adopted at the age of 5)

By her account, Phil kept Ronnie a near-prisoner and limited her opportunities to pursue her musical ambitions. In her autobiography, she said that he would force her to watch the film Citizen Kane to remind her she would be nothing without him. Spector’s domineering attitude led to the dissolution of their marriage. Bennett was forbidden to speak to the Rolling Stones or tour with the Beatles, because Phil Spector feared that she would be unfaithful..

Bennett claims Spector showed her a gold coffin with a glass top in his basement, promising to kill and display her if she left him. During Spector’s reclusive period in the late 1960s, he reportedly kept his wife locked inside their mansion..*

She claimed he also hid her shoes to dissuade her from walking outside, and kept the house dark because he did not want anyone to see his balding head. Ronnie stated in her autobiography that she walked out of the house through the closed and locked rear sliding glass door, shoeless, shattering the glass as she left, and feet all cut up by the time she got to the gate. She never returned. Ronnie Spector filed for divorce in 1972. She wrote a book about her experiences, and said years later: "I can only say that when I left in the early 1970s, I knew that if I didn't leave at that time, I was going to die there."-By Maureen Callahan (March 7, 2007) New York Post She and Spector separated in 1973 and divorced one year later. In August 2011, Spector admitted that she went to rehab in order to escape living with Phil. 

Ronnie’s autobiography, Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness, co-authored with Vince Waldron, was published in 1989. In 2004, Onyx Books republished the book in a revised and updated mass-market paperback edition in the United States. She lives in Connecticut with her second husband, Jonathan Greenfield, and their two sons, Austin Drew and Jason Charles. She has been performing Ronnie Spector’s Christmas Party annually since the late 1980s around the United States and for the last ten years in New York City at B. B. King’s Blues Club and Grill.

Career

The Ronettes were produced by Phil Spector and managed by Val Irving of (GAC) General Artists Corporation in Manhattan. In the early 1960s, they had huge hits with "Be My Baby", "Baby, I Love You", "The Best Part of Breakin’ Up, "Do I Love You?" and "Walking in the Rain". The group had two top 100 hits in 1965: "Born to Be Together" and "Is This What I Get for Loving You." The group broke up in early 1967, following a European concert tour that included their appearance at the Moonlight Lounge, in Gelnhausen, Germany, where they entertained American military personnel there. The group’s last single, "I Can Hear Music," on the Philles Records label (# 133), was released in the fall of 1966. Ironically, that song was not produced by Phil Spector, who used to hire the "Wrecking Crew," Los Angeles area musicians, to provide Wall of Sound orchestral pop symphony backups for the group, at Gold Star Recording Studios in Hollywood. Instead, "I Can Hear Music" was produced by songwriter/producer Jeff Barry, who used only a small band when he recorded the trio in a New York City recording studio. For the group, the writing was on the wall. Spector simply stopped producing new Ronettes’ records and kept many of the group’s many unreleased songs in the vault, for years. The Ronettes were never to reunite until their 2007 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 1966 was also the year when Phil Spector went into a brief seclusion. He earlier that same year felt reputationally devastated by the high expectations and then disappointment of the Spector-produced Tina Turner recording "River Deep – Mountain High" . Thereafter, a one-off single, "You Came, You Saw, You Conquered," sung by Ronnie but credited to "The Ronettes Featuring the Voice of Veronica," appeared in 1969 on Herb Alpert’s A&M label, with "Oh I Love You," an old Ronettes B-side, as the flip. Only Ronnie’s voice was used for the lead and background vocals on "You Came, You Saw, You Conquered". Ronnie’s recording and performing career had begun its long hiatus. Ironically, it all happened after Ronnie and Phil Spector married in 1968.