Songs I Love, Part IX: “Be My Baby” Ronettes

This one’s for you, Ellie, may you rest in peace.

Ellie Greenwich, one of the true queens of the Brill Building rock & roll era, passed away yesterday. Not only did she help pen my featured song, but also such classics as “Leader of the Pack,” “Chapel of Love,” “Da Doo Ron Ron,” “Hanky Panky,” “Baby I Love You” and “River Deep Mountain High.” She also helped arrange and produce some early Neil Diamond tunes.

Of course, she worked with Jeff Barry on most of the songs. They later married and divorced. And on “Be My Baby” worked with Phil Spector, a musical genius despite his personal failings.

The Ronettes were centered around the incredible voice (and exotic looks) of Veronica Bennett, later known to all in the music world as Ronnie Spector. She ended up marrying her producer, from whom she eventually escaped — literally — as he kept her locked and guarded at his mansion on the hill.

The Supremes and Shirelles notwithstanding, one guy’s opinion is that the Ronettes were the greatest of the girl groups. I heard Ronnie Spector do a show as part of the Ponderosa Stomp during New Orleans JazzFest week last year, and it was ’63 all over. That gorgeous, effective, brittle voice of hers — the greatest in all rock & roll — still works its wonder. I saw the group one other time, when they opened for the Beatles at Chicago’s International Amphitheater on the first stop of their last American tour.

Enough drab gab. Enjoy this deliciously evocative of “Be My Baby” when they appeared on Shindig. It’s actually a live version. Unlike the Dick Clark TV shows, where all the performers lip synced their songs.

– Seedy K