Be My Baby: A Memoir

by Ronnie Spector, Vince Waldron (With), Keith Richards (Foreword by)

Overview

“Do I have to tell you that Ronnie’s got one of the greatest female rock-and-roll voices of all time? She stands alone.”
—Keith Richards

Be My Baby is the behind-the-scenes story—newly updated, and with an especially timely message—of how the original bad girl of rock and roll, Ronnie Spector, survived marriage to a monster and carved out a space for herself amid the chaos of the 1960s music scene and beyond.

Ronnie’s first collaboration with producer Phil Spector, “Be My Baby,” shot Ronnie and the Ronettes to stardom. No one sounded like Ronnie, with her alluring blend of innocence and knowing, but her voice would soon be silenced as Spector sequestered her behind electric gates, guard dogs, and barbed wire.

It took everything Ronnie had to escape her prisonlike marriage and wrest back control of her life, her music, and her legacy. And as shown in this edition, which includes a 2021 postscript from Ronnie, her life became proof that our challenges do not define us and there is always the potential to forge a fuller life.

In Be My Baby, the incomparable Ronnie Spector offered a whirlwind account of the ever-shifting path of an iconic artist. And, more than anything else, she gave us an inspiring tale of triumph.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250837202
Publisher:	Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	05/03/2022
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	111,904
File size:	18 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Ronnie Spector shot to fame in 1963 as the lead singer of the Ronettes, the quintessential girl group responsible for bringing a streetwise style to rock music and for a string of hits that included “Be My Baby.” Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, Ronnie Spector and her iconic look and sound have inspired new generations of female artists, including Amy Winehouse. She toured the world throughout the six decades of her extraordinary career. Ronnie Spector died on January 12, 2022.

Vince Waldron is an author and Emmy-winning writer. He lives in Los Angeles.

Ronnie Spector shot to fame in 1963 as the lead singer of the Ronettes, the quintessential girl group responsible for bringing a streetwise style to rock music and for a string of hits that included “Be My Baby.” Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, Ronnie Spector and her iconic look and sound have inspired new generations of female artists, including Amy Winehouse. She toured the world throughout the six decades of her extraordinary career. Ronnie Spector died on January 12, 2022.

Table of Contents

Introduction by Keith Richards
1 Ozzie and Harriet in Spanish Harlem
2 A Whole Lot of ’Ettes
3 A Little More Mascara
4 Pied Piper
5 Wigs on the Ceiling
6 Fools Fall in Love
7 John, George, Ringo, and Mom
8 Beauty and the Beast
9 Thunderstorms
10 In the Red Zone
11 Gross Pictures
12 In the Dark
13 Honeymoon
14 Inflatable Man
15 Seizure
16 Unnatural Childbirth
17 Out of Control
18 Not My Key
19 Field Trips
20 Barefoot and Broke
21 Up for Grabs
22 Say Goodbye to Hollywood
23 Backstage Pass
24 Running Away
25 The Bottom Line
26 Two Pounds, Six Ounces
27 Unfinished Business
Epilogue, 1990
Postscript
Acknowledgments
The Ronnie Spector Discography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Rolling Stone: 50 Greatest Rock Memoirs of All Time (#14)
NME: 20 Rock Memoirs That Don’t Hold Back (#10)
Far Out Magazine (UK): 10 Greatest Rock Memoirs of All Time (#8)

“What a trip it was, being Miss Ronnie Spector. And what a perfect, challenging moment in our culture to revisit—and revel in—this edge-of-your-seat tutorial from the ultimate Cool Girl on surviving her tumultuous rock opera with joy and talent intact. These pages are laced with pure, straight-up Ronnie—hilariously deadpan about her astonishing life, fierce, clear-eyed, and still mad for the music. Dive in and fall in l-o-v-e.”
—Gerri Hirshey, author of We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The True, Tough Story of Women in Rock

“An entertaining, gossipy, whirlwind ride through the 1960s.”
—Wendy Leigh, London Sunday Times

“Funny and observant, consistently engaging . . . sprinkled with deadpan humor.”
—Mike Boehm, Los Angeles Times

“Entertaining, often disturbing . . . well told and . . . quite moving. Be My Baby . . . marks the passage of Ronnie Spector from victim to survivor.”
—Alan Light, Rolling Stone

“If you’re looking for self-pity, you’ll be disappointed, because her book, like her voice, is full of cocky, smart, self-aware humor. And, yes, in case you were wondering, it totally sucked to be married to Phil Spector.”
—Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone

“Arguably one of the most potent voices of rock ‘n’ roll’s early moments, Ronnie Spector was the lynchpin of The Ronettes and the ultimate 1960s powerhouse performer. . . . She is strong, bolshy and sharp as a tack.”
—Far Out (UK)

“An enthralling and moving Dante-esque descent through the rock ’n’ roll inferno. One of the three greatest rock ’n’ roll memoirs.”
—Jon Wilde, Blitz (London)

“Not only does this book give a revealing look at what it takes to be in one of the greatest girl groups of all time, it also casts a sinister light on Ronnie’s former husband and Wall of Sound svengali, Phil Spector.”
—Emily Barker, NME

“Despite all the hard times, Ronnie comes across here as a survivor, and the book maintains a surprisingly jaunty tone.”
—Ilene Cooper, Booklist

“A lively, illuminating read . . . Spector’s portrait of the energy of the early Sixties music scene is fascinating.”
—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

10/01/2021

A Duff Cooper Prize winner for Becoming Dickens, Oxford English professor Douglas-Fairhurst argues that for Dickens the emotionally tumultuous year of 1851 was The Turning Point that singularly shaped his oeuvre. A professor of Aegean civilization at the University of Bologna, Ferrera moves from Mesopotamia and Crete to China, Central America, Easter Island, and beyond to chronicle The Greatest Invention—writing. In I Was Better Last Night, Fierstein talks about being a cultural icon, gay rights activist, and four-time Tony Award-winning actor and playwright. Emmy Award-winning writer Galloway, who created the Reporter's famed Oscar Roundtables, revisits Madly in love Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, among the first global celebrities (75,000-copy first printing). In Keats, British literary critic Miller uses verse and epitaph, e.g., "Endymion," "Bright Star," to explore the life of the English Romantic and present him less as dreamer than subversive. In a book structured as a series of letters to her book-loving father, Nafisi urges us to Read Dangerously, addressing literature as both solace and subversive power that can challenge repressive politics; originally scheduled for August 2021 (75,000-copy first printing). Oscar-nominated screenwriter, director, and actor Polley offers six essays capturing moments of her life, from stage fright to risky childbirth to healing herself after traumatic injury by retraining her mind to Run Towards the Danger, i.e., the very things that triggered her recurrent symptoms. The creator of The Good Place and cocreator of Parks and Recreation, Schur offers How To Be Perfect as a laugh-out-loud guide to living not the good life but the better life (200,000-copy first printing). Lead singer of the Ronettes—remember Be My Baby?—Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Spector recounts professional collaboration with and marriage to Phil Spector, then fighting to reclaim her musical legacy and her life (75,000-copy first printing).

Library Journal

2022-06-20
The lead singer of the Ronettes and former wife of producer Phil Spector recounts her roller-coaster career and emotionally abusive marriage.

Born in Spanish Harlem in 1943, Veronica Bennett always loved to sing. As teens, she, her sister, and her cousin met a small-time agent who got them work playing bar mitzvahs. He introduced them to a producer, and they made a record. It bombed, but the three put on matching yellow dresses, stuffed their bras, and went to New York's hottest club; by the time the night was over, they had a regular gig as dancers. Then they started dancing at the Brooklyn Fox rock-and-roll revue, where they performed alongside the Shirelles, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, and others. In 1963, Phil Spector agreed to audition them; he signed them because he loved Ronnie's voice. As the group rehearsed, Phil and Ronnie became involved. "Be My Baby" became their first and biggest hit. The group toured England, where they made friends with the Beatles (Ronnie flirted with John, but stayed true to Phil). But trouble started when Ronnie and Phil got a mansion in Beverly Hills. Phil was fiercely possessive. He convinced her not to open for the Beatles. He yelled at her, then hired servants to watch her every move. Marriage didn't help. He preferred to keep her at home than to record with her, and she became so bored she drank all the time. Finally, she left him and tried to relaunch her career, but she was often drunk. Then, however, she met a sane and gentle man, quit drinking, and had two babies. Spector's portrait of the energy of the early Sixties music scene is fascinating. Although she doesn't explicitly discuss the girl group phenomenon, what really comes across is how completely she ceded control—first to her mother, then to her various producers—especially her husband.

A lively, illuminating read, then, for fans of the period or for anyone interested in the power politics of the music business.

Kirkus Reviews