The Ronettes

[Shelley "SoleMann" King]

Be My Baby...Ahhhh words forever instilled in my
mind from a beautiful saturday night way back in 1977.

As i sat down and prepared to look at Sha Na Na.
I was excited because days earlier i had heard
the 1960's hit Be My Baby and was blown away
by the sound of Ronnie Spector and the Ronettes
(she was known as Veronica Bennett at that time)

Then the moment came and my 10 year old mind
was in awe of the beauty of Ronnie Spector, my
breath was taken away and i fell instantly in
love.

Ya'll know how it is when a child has a crush on
a celebrity and i thought nobody would ever
replace Jayne Kennedy in my heart, but Ronnie
had me hooked badly....LOL

I remember telling my Mama that someday i was
going to marry her and have 50 kids...Oh my
Goodness the mind of a child is amazing huh....LOL

Today 29 years later when i still think back to that
night i smile and laugh. It was a great time to be
10 and in love.

Although i have never seen Ronnie in person, thanks
to the Internet and YouTube i now have access to
countless videos by The Ronettes and it makes my
memories of that summer in 1977 that much sweeter.

Written by Solemannking 7/23/2006

Here is the link to the Sha Na Na performance....LOL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD0166KpAhs

THE RONETTES...BE MY BABY and SHOUT


2 of the original Ronettes performed in the last video, Ronnie Spector and Nedra Talley (in the gold dress) Ronnie's sister Estelle Bennett was unable to perform due to a stroke, but you will see her come to the stage at the end....

RONETTES... BE MY BABY - ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME 2007

[Shelley "SoleMann" King]

Miss Joan and Mr. Sam...The B-side of The Ronettes 'Baby I Love You. 1963


Those Spector B-sides were quite interesting.
As history tells it, all B's from Phil's acts were NOT another song by the group on the A, but some little instrumental by The Wrecking Crew or orchestra, simply to prevent radio DJ's from cleverly making an unintended hit from a B-side.

[Edie Antoinette]

Spector is into Big Hair...LOL

[Shelley "SoleMann" King]

I wonder what they hiding under them bee hives.....LOL

[Edie Antoinette]

I'mma see if I can find it. Adopted...ohhh. Yeah, he is nutz. And his parents were first cousins...ugh.

[Shelley "SoleMann" King]

I wonder how this sounds....LOL

[Shelley "SoleMann" King]

UGHHHH....He look like a gay fonz on the first pic....ROFLMBO. I found this quote

"I have three adopted children with Phil, and for years I was fighting in court with him over being able to see my kids. I was always going back and forth to California, going to court."

[Edie Antoinette]

Ugh...do you have any pics of he and Ronnie's kids?

[Edie Antoinette]

Lawd...he DOES look like ole Monty Burns! Look at that! ROFLMBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Edie Antoinette]

Not going to give this weirdo anymore attention here but I HAD to share this!
The following is a chronological look at Phil Spector's ten weirdest moments -- snapshots of a inordinately strange life, and ones that don't involve pulling a gun on his female companions. Got an anecdote about Spector that you think should be here, but isn't? Feel free to e-mail me!

1.
While on tour with his first act, The Teddy Bears ("To Know Him Is To Love Him"), the 18-year-old Spector is accosted in a men's urinal. Short and unprepared to defend himself, Phil is urinated on by four street toughs. The incident so mortifies and frightens Spector that he keeps a bodyguard around him (and a gun on him) from that day on. (1958)
2.
Brill Building songwriters Gerry Goffin and Carole King bring Phil a new song, written about their babysitter Eva Boyd (who, as Little Eva, would also become lead singer on another Goffin-King song she inspired, "The Locomotion"). Abused by her boyfriend, Eva tells Carole that the violence only proves how much he loves her. The resultant 45, "He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)," would get a deadpan version of Phil's "Wall of Sound" treatment. The group who record it, The Crystals, hate it, and so does America, with public outrage causing the single to be pulled almost immediately. (1962)
3.
Embroiled in legal battles with label co-owner Lester Sill, Spector delivers the new song he's still contractually obligated to produce: a six-minute "dance" 45 by the Crystals called "(Let's Dance) The Screw." The chorus consists mostly of Spector intoning the words "dance the screw" slowly over a spare, monotonous beat, with the same thing on the other side's "Part Two." Legend has it that Spector wanted to "screw" Sill out of his obligational hit record. A copy of the record is hand-delivered to Sill. (1963)
4.
During sessions for John Lennon's (also contractually obligated) oldies covers album, Rock And Roll, Spector and Lennon out-drink each other, spar verbally, and scream at each other over the din of Phil's wacked-out production. Samples from this infamous session can be heard on Lennon's Anthology box set and on bootlegs. During these sessions, Spector is also seen to wave a handgun around, threatening longtime Beatles roadie and associate Mal Evans with it and eventually shooting it into the air. A frazzled Spector soon disappears with the session tapes, which took Lennon months to retrieve. (1973)
5.
Spector has a glass coffin, like the one in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, installed in the basement of his mini-castle estate in Los Angeles, and leads Ronnie's mother Beatrice to it, telling her it's where Ronnie will lie if she ever tries to leave him. (1971)
6.
Insane with jealousy, Spector locks his wife Ronnie, former lead vocalist of the Ronettes, inside his mansion and refuses to let her leave the premises for months. The technical kidnapping ends when a barefoot Ronnie, assisted by her mother, somehow slips past the barred windows, barbed-wire fences, attack dogs and bodyguards. (1972)
7.
While working with punk rock legends The Ramones, Spector forces the band to play the same opening guitar chord over and over again for eight solid hours, mixing it into the song "Rock And Roll High School" until he gets it just the way he wants it. At one point, the frustrated band attempts to leave, but Phil pulls a gun on the group and forces them to play his 1963 hit by the Ronettes, "Baby I Love You." (1979)
8.
Spector is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and stuns the awards ceremony when he enters with three bodyguards, all with their hands on their guns. He proceeds to make a long, rambling, nearly incomprehensible acceptance speech, then falls off the stage. (1989)
9.
Time Europe reports that Phil walks around his new estate in Alhambra, CA every day, in complete darkness, wearing nothing but a Batman costume. (1999)
10.
Spector's sons Gary and Donte relate Ronnie-like tales of forced isolation in the late Seventies to London's Daily Mail, and go on to accuse the famous producer of blindfolding Gary and then molesting them both. (2003)

[Shelley "SoleMann" King]

ROFLMBO