A Ronette we can't forget

BY GLENN GAMBOA | glenn.gamboa@newsday.com

March 11, 2007

Ronnie Spector remembers walking into a New York studio with indie-rock up-and-comers The Raveonettes and wondering why they were acting so strangely.

"I couldn't believe it," says Spector in her still-distinctive voice, calling from her Connecticut home. "They were speechless - like they couldn't say anything or move because it was me. I said, 'You guys are fans?' They were like, 'Where do you think we got the name from?'"

Though Spector's group The Ronettes became international sensations in 1963 on the strength of a string of hits that included the classic "Be My Baby," she said she believes her complicated, difficult relationship with her ex-husband and producer Phil Spector has kept the girl group - founded in Washington Heights with her sister Estelle Bennett and their cousin Nedra Talley - from getting the credit it deserves. And though Brian Wilson and Billy Joel have famously written songs for her and countless female singers have tried to match her vocal mix of toughness and vulnerability, Ronnie Spector still is surprised to find she has fans and admirers.

Maybe that will change Monday when she and her fellow Ronettes are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"I went through so much with my ex-husband and he closed every door for me," Spector says. "But I did this great show in Philly last week and it sunk in - 'I'm finally in the Hall of Fame.' I felt it. Before, I was just like, 'Is this real?'"

With their debut single, "I Want a Boy," released in 1961 (under the name Ronnie and the Relatives), The Ronettes have been eligible for induction since 1986. However, Spector says her ex-husband has long been campaigning against the group's inclusion, an outgrowth of a fierce battle over royalties that has spanned decades, as well as their bitter divorce. (Phil Spector, set to face murder charges in California March 19 in the death of actress Lana Clarkson, could not be reached for comment.)

"She's always thought that people wouldn't remember her," says Eddie Money, who helped spur Spector's comeback by asking her to sing on his 1986 hit "Take Me Home Tonight." "She had dropped out of the business. I remember calling her and there was all this clanking going on. She was doing the dishes."

In turn, Spector has made appearances on Money's current tour, which is promoting "Wanna Go Back" (Big Deal), in stores Tuesday, his first album since 1999.

"She's such a sweetheart," Money says. "It's about time they put her in the Hall of Fame."

Warren Zanes, vice president of education at the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, agrees. "When you look at who best represented the Phil Spector sound, some will go to 'River Deep, Mountain High,' but most will go to 'Be My Baby,'" Zanes says. "Brian Wilson is a case study in this. It haunted him. 'Be My Baby' is the song most lodged in his mind."

Wilson was so taken with "Be My Baby," he wrote "Don't Worry Baby" for The Ronettes to record, but Phil Spector refused it. Yet these days, Ronnie Spector embraces "Don't Worry Baby," singing it - and Joel's "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" - at concerts along with songs from her new album "Last of the Rock Stars," on which she collaborates with Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Nick Zinner, fellow Rock Hall inductee Patti Smith and Keith Richards, who will induct Spector into the hall.

"People like Phil Spector, they can produce records, but when I walk out on that stage and people hear my voice, they are just blown away," Spector says. "He tries to make you think it's his production. He wants everybody to think it was just him. Well, he didn't have me. My mom did."