Unlike other acts sometimes relegated to the oldies realm, she eschewed the common practice of squeezing all her classics into medleys.
“I never do that,” she said. “I always do full versions of `Be My Baby,’ `Baby I Love You,’ `Walkin in the Rain.’ ”
At the time, she was starring in a 13-night engagement in Atlantic City, performing her highlights from Phil Spector’s groundbreaking 1963 Christmas albums as well as salutes to fondly remembered men in her life, from Frankie Lymon, who inspired her as a young girl, to John Lennon.
She had met Lennon when the Ronettes were touring England with their No. 1 song there, “Be My Baby” in 1963, at a time when the Rolling Stones opened for her. She writes about Lennon putting the moves on her when the Beatles came to America. But as a teen, she escaped his advances, preferring to remain his friend.
They remained friends until Lennon’s death in 1980; all four Beatles backed Spector on her largely ignored 1971 comeback single on Apple Records, “Try Some, Buy Some,” written and co-produced by George Harrison.
And she’s had no shortage of big names championing her name through the years. Billy Joel wrote “Goodbye to Hollywood” for her, and she later recorded it. She sang on Southside Johnny’s debut on a song written by Bruce Springsteen.Her 1986 duet with Eddie Money, “Take Me Home Tonight,” which reprised the chorus of “Be My Baby.”
She recorded with acts from the Ravonettes to The Misfits this century. Her 2006 solo album “Last of the Rock Stars” attracted Keith Richards, Patti Smith among others. Throughout, she maintained her influence to generations of female rockers from Amy Winehouse to Santigold.
One subject I was forbidden to bring up in the interview was her marriage to Phil Spector, for whom the young Veronica “Ronnie” Bennett was his strongest, most distinctive voice — and who died a year ago this week in jail after being convicted in 2009 for the 2003 murder of an actress.
Much of what Ronnie Spector had to say about him appeared in her 1990 autobiography “Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts and Madness, or My Life as a Fabulous Ronette.”
It recounted the early days of the group she formed with her sister and cousin, how they were noticed for their looks first of all, being hired to dance at the famous Peppermint Twist club, and how Spector pursued her, eventually seducing her while playing the single he had written, “Baby, I Love You,” over and over on a record player.
It was Phil Spector who was the architect of the Ronettes’ greatest hits. But jealousy caused him to forbid the lead singer from going on the Beatles’ final tour in 1966. “I don’t regret it,” Ronnie Spector told me. “It’s just one of those things that happened for that time.”
Once Phil and Ronnie Spector married in 1968, the biography said, she was practically imprisoned in their home until their divorce in 1974.
Writing the book was suggested by her therapist. “I wrote it not for anything but to get it all out,” she said. But once she did, “I called up the publishers and said, `I can’t put this out. I read every page, and I cry. Every page is wet.’ They said, `That’s what we want.’ “
But at the time, it was being considered for a bio pic — one that was still in the works 25 years later, with Zendaya in the lead.
“To have a movie deal now, I’m amazed,” Spector said of her continuing legend. “I’m on a natural high.”