An icon of one of pop music’s greatest eras
RONNIE Spector was one of the truly great figures of the female pop revolution of the 60s.
She was up there with Diana Ross and Dusty Springfield when pop music was leaning heavily on R&B and the 45rpm single was the calling card of teenagers around the world.
Veronica Yvette Bennett grew up in East Harlem, one of the informal training academies of the music industry.
Like most of the neighbourhood’s doo-wop groups, she began singing on street corners and graduated to winning amateur night competitions with her sister and cousin.
By the time they met the toxic producer Phil Spector girl groups were leading the charge in popular music. The Motown sound of Detroit had catapulted the Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas and the Marvelettes to national fame.
On TV, teenage shows like American Bandstand brought black and racially mixed groups into the living rooms of still segregated communities.
Historic photographs of those pioneering days show Ronnie backstage at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem with the young Cassius X (who went on to be called Muhammad Ali). Sitting next to Ronnie are Dionne Warwick and Motown’s 13-year-old boy genius, Stevie Wonder.
In the UK, touring with the Rolling Stones, the Ronettes’ support came from the mods and scooter kids who had fallen in love with American soul.
In Bristol they played the Colston Halls, named after the now disgraced slave owner whose statue was toppled in the BLM demonstrations.
Ronnie’s style encapsulated the early 60s – fashionably tight cocktail dresses, bouffant hair and satanic black eyeliner, which exaggerated her racially ambiguous good looks. She was the daughter of an AfricanAmerican and Cherokee mother and IrishAmerican father.
Most tributes to Ronnie will inevitably focus on the horrendous abuse she suffered at the hands of her first husband.
But she should be remembered as an icon of one of pop music’s greatest eras.
According to her family, “Ronnie lived her life with a twinkle in her eye, a spunky attitude, a wicked sense of humour and a smile on her face.”
Stuart Cosgrove’s recent book Cassius X is being produced as a feature documentary by the Smithsonian Channel in the US.