Post by dex on Jan 16, 2022 17:41:50 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/arts/music/ronnie-spector-dead.html
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The Ronettes racked up a string of hits through 1965, including “The Best Part of Breakin’ Up” and “Walking in the Rain,” and for a time they were ubiquitous stars. They were part of the Beatles’ 1966 American tour, and Estelle Bennett, Ms. Spector’s older sister, dated both George Harrison and Mick Jagger.
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In the late 1980s, the Ronettes sued Mr. Spector for royalties, arguing that they had been paid less than $15,000 when they signed with Mr. Spector’s Philles Records in 1963 and that they never saw another payment. The court battle would last 15 years.
During the trial, Ms. Spector said that her husband had stifled her singing career and threatened her into signing a 1974 divorce settlement that forfeited all future record profits. “He told me, ‘I’ll kill you,’ and said, ‘I’ll have a hit man kill you,’” she testified.
The group won an award of $2.6 million in 2000, but the decision was overturned on appeal two years later, and their families later said they wound up earning substantially less.
“I was so controlled by Phil, and now I have my own ideas,” Ms. Spector said at the time. “With this lawsuit over, I’m only looking forward: to my future, to singing rock ’n’ roll.”
Veronica Yvette Bennett was born in New York on Aug. 10, 1943, and grew up in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan.
By her teens she was singing with her sister and cousin, inspired by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. Estelle, who had a job at Macy’s and attended the Fashion Institute of Technology, helped devise the group’s look of beehive hair, tight dresses and heavy makeup.
In a segregated era, the young women’s racial and ethnic backgrounds made them stand out. The Bennett sisters had Black, American Indian and Irish blood, while Ms. Talley was Black, Indian and Puerto Rican.
In 1961, the Ronettes were signed to Colpix Records, which released “I Want a Boy” and other singles under the name Ronnie and the Relatives. After an audition in 1963, Mr. Spector signed the group to Philles. “Be My Baby,” written by Mr. Spector, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, was released that summer.
Throughout the 1970s, in an attempt to rebuild her career without her ex-husband, Ms. Spector collaborated with Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen. But she didn’t find major success again until 1986, when her duet with Eddie Money, “Take Me Home Tonight,” reached No. 4 on the Billboard singles chart and earned a Grammy nomination.
She played a regular Christmas show at the B.B. King Blues Club and Grill in New York, and she released a holiday EP in 2010. For longtime fans, it was a throwback to Phil Spector’s classic 1963 holiday album, “A Christmas Gift for You,” on which the Ronettes sang “Frosty the Snowman,” “Sleigh Ride” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.”
“Every song is a little piece of my life,” she said in 2007. “I’m just a girl from the ghetto who wanted to sing.”
PCDad why do I love you? Let me count the ways. You, my friend And Oh BTW I know Dad outside of this Board; are a treasure trove of encyclopedic knowledge of the pages of our lives. You bring the past, and I'm not just talking about music celebrities, to the fore-front of my mind. I truly wish you would write a weekly piece of your thoughts, life, and impressions of the past 50 or 60 years.
BRAVO