The Ronettes

Perhaps the best remembered of the "girl group" of the early '60s, The Ronettes achieved their biggest success under producer Phil Spector. In towering black beehive hairdos and dark eye makeup, the Ronettes were a classic mid-sixties girl group with a sultry twist; vulnerable but tough, sexy but. sweet.Veronica (Ronnie) Bennett, her sister Estelle, and their cousin Nedra Talley grew up in New York City's Washington Heights.Starting in 1959, their grandmother would sequester the three in a room for an indefinite period and encourage the three to harmonize.The girls aged 13 to16, called themselves the Darling sisters and took their act to the Apollo theatre amateur contest. When they won Grandma started having them take singing lessons. Phillip Halikus heard them, saw their potential and became their manager. He started them out with appearances at hops and charity shows.On night in 1961, the girls dressed in tight skirts and with their hair piled high, stood in line at Joey Dee's Peppermint Lounge on New York's 45th Street. the manager mistaking them for a singing trio that hadn't arrived and took them inside. Ushered them on stage and they belted out a version of Ray Charles' "What I Say," even using the choreography they had been working on. The girls took the club by storm and were signed to appear regularly for $10 a night. Meanwhile Phillip Halikus set up their first recording session through Stu Phillips at Colpix Records.Between their other activities, the girls found themselves backing artists like Bobby Rydell, Del Shannon and Joey Dee on record.At this time there are two conflicting stories. The first is that Estelle while dialing a phone number for confirmation of a recording session, dialed the wrong number and wound up talking to Phil Spector. One thing led to another and he supposedly asked the group to do a demo for him. After hearing them he wanted to immediately produce a Ronettes record. The other less romantic version is that 16 magazine staffer Georgia Winters introduced Spector to the girls while he was in New York talent hunting. Whichever was true, Spector was taken with Ronnie's hard but sweet sound and saw the "bad girls" in beehives as an act he could build an image around.. Up until that time girl groups rarely had an identity or even their picures on the sleeves of their 45s. That changed with the Ronettes.Earth shaking hand claps, thousand pound drums, and Leon Russell's insistent piano playing, introduced the most powerful wall of sound record yet "Baby I Love You." the Ronettes held there own in a sea of orchestration, but not without some support. Spector added the backing voices of Darlene Love and the Blossoms, Ronnie herself, and Cher, over dubbing them until he had twenty to twenty five voices, balancing out the dense instrumental tracks. "Baby I Love You" charted on December 21, 1963. Though it only reached number twenty four, it went up to number eleven in Britain.By the end of 1966 the Ronettes had disbanded. Nedra married WINS program director Scott Ross and Estelle married producer/songwriter Teddy Vann. Ronnie forced into retirement by Spector managed only to release an occasional single. In 1971, under Spector's direction Ronnie recorded "Try Some, Buy Some" for the Beatles Apple label. This was her last charting record. It reached number seventy seven in the spring of 1971.In 1973, with her marriage almost over, Ronnie returned to performing. She appeared as Ronnie and the Ronettes at Richard Nader's "Rock and Roll Revival" show at Madison Square Garden. The new female trio included Denise Edwards and Chip Fields.In 1976 Ronnie sang backup for Bruce Springsteen at his New York Palladium performance. This led to E Street Band member Miami Steve Van Zant producing and arranging a 1977 single with Ronnie Spector and the E Street Band titled "Say Goodbye To Hollywood." The song written by Billy Joel, rocked with Ronnie's most inspired vocals since the early Spector days..It never charted.While the Ronettes were unique musically, they were also the first really seductive girl group. Others before them seemed to be singing to their friends about the boys they desired( "Maybe" the Chantels; "I Met Him on a Sunday" the Shirelles; He's So Fine" the Chiffons). The Ronettes sang directly to the boys "Be My Baby," "Baby I Love You") and performer to audience relations have never been the same since.

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