Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
RON ROLLS BACK THE YEARS
Sixties star on her passion for performing and the torment that shaped her life
Beehived beauty Ronnie Spector forever carved her heart-shaped claim on pop history with The Ronettes’ 60s smashes such as Be My Baby and Baby, I Love You.
But it came at a heavy price at the hands of twisted genius producer husband Phil Spector, now serving a life sentence for murdering an actress.
Ronnie, 75, suffered years of torment and abuse, banned by Spector from performing, before escaping their six-year nightmare marriage in 1974.
“I think all the torture made me the woman I am today and that’s all I have to say about that,” says Ronnie.
Now she’s back on stage singing and telling an extraordinary life story that featured legends such as John Lennon, Keith Richards and Jimi Hendrix. “That’s my passion, performing. No matter what I feel that day, that week, when I walk on that stage it’s just like 50 years ago. It’s magical,” she says.
“And you know what, Gavin? When I walk out on that stage, everything else disappears except the faces in the crowd.”
When Ronnie first came to London in 1964, the most famous faces in pop wanted to meet her.
“The Beatles saw us at Sunday night at the London Palladium. They said, ‘We’ve got to go and meet these girls with the long black hair’. We were biracial so we were light-skinned too – I think that’s what people liked about The Ronettes. We were just different.
“John Lennon was sweet, he was quiet. People didn’t know all that little stuff about him,” says Ronnie. “Later on they thought about the drugs and the love-ins. But back then he would take me all over London, shopping to buy boots and all the English gear as they called it over there.”
And later on, in the 70s, Lennon helped set up her tremendous comeback hit Say Goodbye To Hollywood, made with Bruce Springsteen.
Amy Winehouse was such a fan she borrowed her distinctive look – and Ronnie returned the compliment covering Back To Black. “I didn’t feel like she’d taken our look. She reminded me that what I did mattered.”
Now Ronnie enjoys life with her husband Jonathan Greenfield and their two children – and still sees welcome faces from her past.
Keith Richards, who played on her last album, lives 15 minutes away.
“I go to his house. He has a recording studio downstairs,” she says. “A month ago, we found we go to the same dentist. He got into the elevator with me. We laughed our heads off.”
Ronnie Spector & The Ronettes play In The Round at London’s Roundhouse on January 27
’No matter what I feel that day, that week, when I walk on stage it’s just like 50 years ago’