(RONNIE) SPECTOR of the Eighties (1980)

Text © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 1980/2022
Images from the Internet unless indicted

Live at the Left Bank (Photo by Robert Barry Francos)

(Ronnie) Spector of the Eighties

Veronica Bennett Spector and the Ronettes, was one of the key voices of the ‘60s girl group sound. They, along with the Shangri-La’s, were early proto-punks, standing up to authorities and their parents, to love whom they wanted how they wanted.

The queen bee was Ronnie Spector, whose glorious voice demanded you be her little baby, insisting that you pass the litmus test of walking in the rain with her, and if you did that, baby, she’d love you.

I don’t remember exactly how the opportunity came up, but Ronnie was finally out from under the thumb of ex-husband/producer Phil Spector (d. 2021), and recording her Siren album with Genya Ravan’s Polish label, and I was offered the chance to interview her. Hell, yeah.

This interview was conducted by myself with an assistance from John DeCeasre, and was published in FFanzeen No. 6, dated Year-end 1980.

During the week of August 11, 1979, the day that Patti Lee Smith Smith played the Dr. Pepper Festival in Central Park during the day and CBGB at night, photographer/friend John DeCeasre dreamed that he saw Ronnie Spector on stage with Patti. Sure enough, there she was, doing “Be My Baby,” with her on the aforementioned night. A dream come true for John, who has been a fan of Ronnie’s since he first saw her on stage at the Fox Theatre in Brooklyn, home of the Murray the K rock’n’roll shows in the early ‘60s.

Ronnie Spector has been through a sort of hell and has come out the other side. Years of loneliness, locked away in a 23-room mansion by husband and producer, Phil Spector, have now led her to performing and touring with such major artist as Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and “The Boss,” Bruce Springsteen. A few recordings have come out here and there, most notably a dynamic version of “It’s a Heartache,” which was totally lost in the shuffle of the Bonnie Tyler release of that same song. With these recording under her belt since her divorce from Phil in 1974, she signed with Genya Ravan, who produced her first album, Siren, which has just been released. Thus was the beginning of Polish Records and the start of a new career for this ex-Ronette.

Ronnie, a health nut who likes White Castle hamburgers, sat with her two admirers in the office of her manager, who was also present (neither John or I caught her name, thinking the other had), on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The date was September 18, 1980.

RBF & Ronnie
(photo by John DeCeasre)

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FFanzeen: More or less, everyone now knows about your history in the Ronettes and until your break-up with Phil in 1974. I’d like to talk about the period after that.
Ronnie Spector: Is that machine on?

FF: Yes, it is.
Ronnie: Oh, my God!

FF: After your marriage, there is this empty void up until – I remember seeing a picture of you in Musical Express– about ‘76-’77. What happened between the two?
Ronnie: I sort of semi-retired at that time. First of all, when I divorced Phil, I went to Buddha Records and Phil sent them a letter and said that I was still under contract, and so right away they said, that’s it. Boom, I was out. That happened a couple of times. It seemed he was just gonna destroy everything I attempted to do. So, I just retired. So, I stayed in Europe for a while with friends. Then Dick Clark asked me to do his “Oldies but Goodies” show. I would co-headline with Chuck Berry. I did that. But I also thought I wasn’t remembered, because during the marriage, the Ronettes were never mentioned and I only recorded one song, “Try Some, Buy Some.” So, I didn’t think people remembered me.

(photo by Robert Barry Francos)

FF: They never forgot.
Ronnie: I’m noticing that now. At that particular time, I had no idea that people even remembered the Ronettes, Ronnie Spector, anything – the voice or anything. After ’74, I did the Dick Clark (show) at Madison Square Garden and there were 23,000 people there. I got a standing ovation. I had three encores and then we went off and people were still screaming and I thought it was because Chuck Berry had come on stage. We were already in our dressing room and we had to come all the way back ... on stage and do another “Be My Baby.”

FF: Was that with the Ronettes?
Ronnie: Not the originals, it was just two girls I hired. The first two were my sister and my cousin.

FF: I have only two questions to ask about Phil.
Ronnie: Sure, you can ask anything.

FF: Did you see the program on PBS called “All You Need Is Love,” in which they showed this long segment of Phil just sitting there talking about how depressing he now is?
Ronnie: Phil? No.

FF: The second is, do you still keep in touch with him?
Ronnie: Yes, well, we have a child so we’re still on speaking terms. Maybe if we didn’t have a child we probably wouldn’t be. Phil is a very arrogant, very bossy, very pushy sort of person. So I probably wouldn’t be as friendly with him if it weren’t for our child.

FF: Getting back to the Dick Clark Show ...
Ronnie: Well, right after that I retired again, ‘cause I didn’t like to be associated with the name, “Oldie but Goodie.” First of all, I’m in my early 30s; if anybody should be the “Oldies but Goodies” it should be the Tony Bennetts, the Frank Sinatras, you know what I mean. It was crazy to me, but I enjoyed doing the Dick Clark Show, only ‘cause it showed me I still had fans. And I love Dick Clark as a person, anyway. He’s a wonderful man, and that’s why I did the show with him. As a friend. Then I retired again. Then I went out with (John) Lennon one night – this is after he had broken up with Yoko – so I went out with him for a while. So, Lennon introduced me to Jim Iovine, who was the engineer for the Jukes and Springsteen, and I was sitting home doing nothing one night and they called me to come down to the Record Plant, one of those recording companies, just to watch them, whatever. So, I went down and started singing along with them and everything and they freaked. They said, “Ronnie, would you –,” and that’s when I did “You Mean So Much (To Me Baby)” [from the Jukes’ I Wanna Go Home album – Ed., 1980] for John. Southside Johnny (Lyon). After that, Billy Joel had written “Say Goodbye to Hollywood,” so the East Street Band [Springsteen’s band – ed., 1980] backed me up on that. Springsteen and Lyon were the producers. Nothing really happened with it over in the States. Even now it’s a classic; you can’t get it. But at that particular time, I couldn’t find the right producer because everybody that I looked at, everybody wanted to be a Phil Spector. Everybody. It was like “Be My Baby,” and if it didn’t sound like “Be My Baby,” it sounded like “Walking in the Rain.” So, I got really disgusted about the whole thing. I just retired again. Then I got a call, sitting home; I was reading a book, I got a phone call from Genya Ravan. She said, “You never met me before, but I’m gonna be your next producer.” She didn’t say, “Let’s think about it; I’d like to talk to you about it.” She said, “I’m gonna be.” She said, “For five years I’ve studied your voice and for five years I’ve looked for you and tried to find you and I couldn’t.” She was so persistent. I said, “I gotta go meet this woman.” So, I went over and met her and we hit like that. Vibes. She knew my voice like Phil would. That’s how Siren all started. A lot of people ask, “Why did it take so long?” ‘Cause it’s been almost two years getting the material. Because everybody was sending songs that sounded like “Be My Baby” or “Walking in the Rain.” And she didn’t want that; she wanted something in the ‘80s. She wanted her own thing. Phil did his thing; she wanted to do her thing. She was absolutely right. And I was looking for that too. I was looking for someone who didn’t say, “I can’t beat Phil Spector.” She was the first. And that’s why I’m back now.

(photo by Robert Barry Francos

FF: What about Jack Nitzsche (d. 2000)?
Ronnie: Well, Jack Nitzsche was supposed to do the arrangements on the songs, but he had to be out of town and so it didn’t work.

FF: He’s all over the place.
Ronnie: He wanted to do it. At that particular time, Nitzsche was going through a lot of problems. That’s another reason he wasn’t on the album. And Genya just kept on trying. She had the confidence in me – she didn’t even look for record companies. She was so confident in me, she formed her own record company, Polish Records. And all because of me. She didn’t have another group already that was big and then say, “Well have Ronnie.” I was the one that made it happen.

FF: Other records she’s produced have been for Sire, like the Dead Boys’ Young, Loud and Snotty.
Ronnie: Right.

FF: How did you get associated with Patti Smith?
Ronnie: Patti Smith introduced herself to me. One night I went with Genya to (CBGB) and Patti Smith said, “I heard Ronnie Spector’s in the audience,” ‘cause she sings “Be My Baby” in her act. Patti tells me, and Debbie Harry, all these girls, that I was their inspiration. I freak them out. Vocally, they all wanted to make it because of me. That’s such a compliment.

FF: You have to remember that you were the epitome of the all-girl groups of the sixties, that (Phil Spector) “wall of sound” sound. The Marvelettes, the Shirelles ...
Ronnie: The Shangri-Las.

FF: The Shangri-Las were something else again.
Ronnie: And again and again.

FF: Ike and Tina Turner. That record flopped, “River Deep, Mountain High.”
Ronnie: In America. It was number one in Europe. That’s why Phil retired. I was married at that time.

FF: I listen to that record and I have to stop everything. I think, I’d like to meet that man.
Ronnie: No, you wouldn’t. No, (just kidding).

FF: I would have liked to have been there. As he was playing with the controls.
Ronnie: He’s a great producer, or was, or what-have-you.

FF: What do you think of his work on the Ramones’ new album, End of the Century? It’s been getting a lot of bad press.
Ronnie: I don’t like the Ramones that much anyway. But the Ramones had a lot to do with their album. Even though Phil did the production, the Ramones still had a lot of control

FF: You do a Ramones song on your album, “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow.”
Ronnie: Right. And everybody thinks I did that because the Ramones did my “Baby I Love You.” And that is not true. In fact, I did a radio show the other day and they asked me that ... and it wasn’t true. It was just a good song. And Genya was looking for good songs. That’s what took so long in making the album. It took a year to get the right material and all that stuff, and she was very choosy and I like that. She didn’t go and say, “Boom, boom, boom because you’re Ronnie Spector and I can make a quick dollar and that’s it.” She didn’t feel that way.

FF: There’s a group called the Steinettes who perform a few of your songs.
Ronnie: Another compliment ... Whether its Patti (Smith) or Debbie (Harry), it’s really incredible. Donovan had that “Oldie but Goodie” album he did with all the old – well, he did “Be My Baby,” but he wouldn’t put it on the album. He called and he said, “Ronnie, I can’t do it. I can’t. It’s such a classic, and the way you do it and the way I sound, forget it.” A lot of people have attempted it. Andy Kim did “Baby I Love You,” the Ramones did “Baby I Love You,” Cher did “Baby I Love You” [as did Dave Edmunds – Ed., 1980]. But nobody will touch “Be My Baby.”

FF: Patti has it on a bootleg called You Light Up My Life.
Ronnie: When I did it with Patti, I had no idea she would call me on stage. I had no idea anyone knew I was even in the audience. And she said, “I heard Ronnie Spector is (in the audience), and if she doesn’t get up here right now ...” – you know. So, I got up and did “Be My Baby” and the audience went crazy.

FF: I bet she was in shock, too.
Ronnie: She was. Which is all a compliment. It’s giving me back the confidence I need. Phil took a lot of confidence away.

FF: He’ll pay for that in his next life. He’ll be born deaf. [laughter] Just a little joke ... Now it’s not an all-girl group anymore.
Ronnie: (Now) it’s all men. I’m the only female in the group.

FF: In what way is the music different? What image are you trying to portray?
Ronnie: I’m not portraying any different image, ‘cause I’m always gonna sing “Be My Baby.” I’m always gonna be loose on stage. I’m not gonna change my whole entire act – all of a sudden come out in gowns with gloves up to here. I’m just gonna be Ronnie Spector. Still dancin’, still loose; spontaneous.

FF: How do you feel about your upcoming Bottom Line performance [which was cancelled until late November so she could do a video and start the next album – Ed., 1980]?
Ronnie: I can’t wait! I had to wait a year and a half because Genya wouldn’t let me work or perform anywhere. I love performing so much that I’m going stir crazy ...

FF: What are the other two Ronettes doing now?
Ronnie: They’re my sister and my cousin, and they’re both happily married. Which is nice, if that’s what you enjoy doing. I don’t mind anything. [laughter] No, I’m serious. If you enjoy it, what the hell. I mean, I maybe would have enjoyed being a housewife with Phil if he had worked from nine-to-five. Phil never went out. Annually, we went out together. So, he was constantly there. Plus, being a housewife, I never cooked, I never cleansed. I never had to do anything ...

FF: Not in a 23-room house?
Ronnie: Five people on the household staff, I had nothing to do. I may have been happier if I had something to do. It was the cook’s kitchen, not mine.

FF: Where do you want to take your career from here?
Ronnie: Up and up and up and up and up. I don’t care as long as it goes up, not down.

FF: At the beginning, you’re probably going to have people coming up to see Veronica of the Ronettes, before they’ll be coming to see Ronnie Spector.
Ronnie: At the beginning, I had to say Ronnie of the Ronettes. Now it’s just Ronnie Spector. I guess it’s because of Springsteen and the Jukes tours. They never said, “Here’s Ronnie of the Ronettes.” They always said, “Here’s Ronnie Spector.” So, people know me as just Ronnie Spector, which I’m thrilled about.

FF: How do you feel about – if you’ll pardon the expression – a has-been making a comeback? [Note: I cringe at this question now, and humbly apologize to Ronnie – Ed., 2022]
Ronnie: I don’t think I ever was a has-been, ‘cause I left at the peak of my career ... I just feel very excited about it, and that’s all I can say. People can speak of the past and the present, but no one can speak of the future, including myself. I’m not God ... I don’t see why it can’t work. I never had management before, and now I have management and the right kind of management. And I have the right producer. When I was with Cleveland International, they were calling Phil to do my stuff. They were getting paranoid about it. With Genya, it’s all different now. I got management, I got a producer, I got an album. I never had an album. Everybody thought that the album of the Ronettes featuring Veronica was an album, that we went into the studio. Never had my own personal album. This is very exciting. I never had management other than Phil, who was husband/manager/everything, so it wasn’t really what you’d call management.

FF: Then I take it you’re satisfied with the say Siren came out?
Ronnie: Very satisfied. [pause] Take your time. I’ve got two minutes. [laughs] I’ve been at band rehearsal all day. It’s tiring, but it’s exciting.
Manager: You might be interested to know that Ronnie has an autobiography coming out, as well as the album.
Ronnie: And also, a movie of my life, playing my own part. I’m playing my own part, baby! [As far as I can tell, as of now, no autobiographical film on Ronnie’s life has been released – Ed.,2022.)
Manager: And there’s another album in the works.
Ronnie: We’ve already got five tunes on the second album ... I’ve been secluded too long. And I like the challenge.

FF: How is the recording doing on airplay?
Manager: We have 52 major stations.

FF: Tell us more about the film.
Ronnie: It’s gonna start, I assume, from the time I was twelve and all through my marriage and the crisis, till now.

FF: Do you think you’ll have trouble playing yourself?
Ronnie: No. Not if I get Dustin Hoffman, who I want to play Phil ... He’s so short. So, I don’t know yet. All I do know, is that the autobiography is coming out first, then the movie. Next week, I’m meeting with a ghostwriter (Vince Waldron – Ed., 2022).
Manager: The book is being published by Polish Records, as well.

FF: Total control.
Manager: You have to, because this girl is really a legend. People who were little children at that time, they know her music.
Ronnie: About a year and half ago, I did a ... tour called “Vaudeville Rock.” The Ronettes, the Drifters, Eddie Fisher, Donald O’Connor.

FF: I read that, but I didn’t know you were on that.
Ronnie: It was fabulous. People coming backstage, even the young kids, 19 and 20, saying, “You were fantastic, I loved the records, I love your songs, I love your voice.” It freaked me out. We had a dress rehearsal the day before the tour started and Eddie Fisher (d. 2010) and Donald O’Connor (d. 2003) called my room just to tell me what a fabulous voice I had. I thought it was such a compliment because from two older people – Eddie Fisher could be my dad, age-wise ... A lot of groups, most of the Shangri-Las are, unfortunately, dead. All of the Marvelettes are dead. Frankie Lymon.

FF: I just saw a video of him at the Ritz.
Ronnie: And he’s dead now (d. 1968).

FF: Very dead. One of the original dead ones.
Ronnie: He was my inspiration. What a voice, huh?

FF: Frankie Lymon and you were almost, like, synonymous. The voice.
Ronnie: My mother was a waitress across the street from where Frankie Lymon lived. I was 11 years old. He was about 17 or 18, and she asked him if he could come to my birthday party. I was in love with him. I had never seen a picture of him or anything, but I was in love with the voice ... “Why Do Fools Fall In Love” would come on the radio and I was moved. He came to my party and only because my mother was a waitress at the restaurant where he used to have lunch.
Manager: You know what’s interesting, tell them some of the people that sang back-up for you because I’ve never seen that in print before.
Ronnie: Leon Russell (d. 2016), Glen Campbell (d. 2017), Herb Albert, Sonny (d. 1998), Cher, I mean I could go on ... It was all the incredible people. There was Hal Blaine (2019) on drums, there’s Barney Kessel (d. 2004) on guitar. And Barney Kessel is one of the greatest guitar players in the world. And all these people were on my album. And I used to wonder with Phil – I mean, these guys worked their asses off. Leon Russell would come out (of the studio) and his hands were actually bleeding. I would say, why do they take that from him? Phil was very strong. But that’s what I liked about him. That’s what made me fall in love with him. He was so powerful and people would do exactly what he said. But then I figured it all out as I got older – all those guys were learning. I used to think, I wouldn’t take this shit from him, I’m not gonna sit here all night and have bleeding hands, and he would say, “Five minutes for coffee,” and that was it ... And they would go right back in there, and I wouldn’t have done it ... Bruce Springsteen – Phil inspired him. Vocally, as Frankie Lymon inspired me, Bruce was inspired by Phil. There are a lot of producers today that Phil did inspire. He was the first man to attempt to make a record three minutes long instead of two. He got away with it. He was the first person to put on a record, “Produced by ... “ Nobody ever did that before.

FF: I think I even have on “Be My Baby,” “Arranged by Jack Nitzsche.”
Ronnie: Jack Nitzsche. Jack “Specs” Nitzsche. All that. And then after that, everybody started doing that. Phil was first. The Ronettes were the first to wear short dresses, silted eyes, beaded hair. We were the first with a lot of things. We were the first girl-group that had only three girls. Usually, it was four girls or five. We had three girls. Even the Supremes when they started had four girls.

FF: You did shows at the Fox with the Shirelles, the Miracles, Little Anthony, Temptations.
Ronnie: Stevie Wonder.

FF: When he was Little Stevie Wonder.
Ronnie: Tom Jones.

FF: The Dovelles.
Ronnie: Wayne Newton. I mean, you name it. And people ask, “Who have you worked with?”, and I always turn around and answer, “Who haven’t I worked with?” In those days, you had 17 acts. And every act had a Number One record. It was the single generation. Maybe it cost 15-20 dollars a ticket, but to get15-16 acts with Number One records ... and I think those days were great because today you get one act – say Springsteen or Jackson Browne – and you get one person, one concert for all that money, whereas in our day, you got 15-16 acts and they hall had Top Ten records ... Tom Jones was on that show (and) he was so bad that when he had “What’s New Pussycat” out, Murray (the K) had to hire two girls to put them in little pussycat suits. He wasn’t good. The audience didn’t accept him then, where they accepted him seven or eight years later. I worked with everybody.

FF: What’s the scoop on Murray the K (d. 1982) when he was running the Fox? What was that all about? Was he in control there, or was he just the M.C.?
Ronnie: No, he was (the man). It was, like, his production ...
Manager: What’s interesting is the fact that her producer, Genya, is not only involved with the record ...
Ronnie: Genya did the arranging, Genya did everything.
Manager: I’m not only talking about the record. She comes down to all the rehearsals and makes sure those guys are reproducing the sound that she put on the records – live.

FF: Now that we’ve covered the after-Ronettes period, what about the before?
Ronnie: Ronnie and the Relatives? We never really worked with that name ... My mother had seven brothers and seven sisters, and everybody did something. If it wasn’t a comedian, somebody was an opera singer; if they weren’t an opera singer, they were the Mills Brothers. I mean, it went on and on. Three of my aunts were the Andrews Sisters. It was a show business family. Not professionally, just on the weekends to please grandma. I had so many cousins my own age, ‘cause my mother had so many sisters and brothers, and they all had kids at the same time. So, I had, like, 23 first cousins. We all got together on the weekends and we sang and danced. One of my aunts was a dancer, she taught us how to dance. Stuff like that.

FF: Ronnie and the Relatives.
Ronnie: Mom shortened it to the Ronettes. And my mother traveled with us everywhere. Even at the Brooklyn Fox where we didn’t have to travel – we just came from Manhattan to Brooklyn – my mother was there at every show, backstage.

FF: Was she a “stage mother”?
Ronnie: No. She wasn’t pushy, she wasn’t do-this-do-that. She was just there to help us out (and see that) there were six shoes, three dresses.
Manager: Her mother said she used to sing on the bus when she was three years old ...
Ronnie: When I was three, people thought I was one, one and a half, ‘cause I was so tiny. I used to belt it out ... Most people sing in the shower. I sing anywhere. When I performed our first performance when we got paid, I said, “They’re giving me money? To sing up there for twenty minutes and dance? It’s like a party. I love it.” I couldn't believe we were getting paid. For doing something I would have done for free anyway. I mean, I did the Bruce Springsteens and the Southside Johnnys and I didn’t get real money.

FF: You didn’t get paid for it?
Ronnie: Not what I call money, no, I didn’t. I mean, I didn’t come home with anything in the bank. I mean, I had a lot of food, clothes on the road – no mink coats. And still today, I would do it for free.

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Sadly, Ronnie passed away on January 12, 2022, exactly one week after this interview was republished, at age 78.