Ronnie Spector has one of those voices. It is grounded in fragility
and tenderness, and flecked with girlish sexuality. But at its best — in,
for example, the Ronettes’ epochal, unrelenting “Be My Baby” — it is a
defining instrument of female power, insistence and desire.
Born in 1943 to a black mother and a white father, Spector started singing
with the Ronettes as Veronica Bennett and had several local New York hits
in the early 1960s. Like several other girl groups at the time, the
Ronettes were charming, if a bit bland. But beginning in 1963,
href="/bc/1998/11/cov_10bc.html">Phil Spector’s famous wall-of-sound
production techniques transformed their airy pop into dense AM radio
confections like “Walking in the Rain,” “Baby, I Love You” and of course
“Be My Baby.” Ronnie married Phil in 1968 and then divorced him six years
later. For the last quarter-century, she’s fought intense legal disputes with
him over royalties and their adopted children. Other than a few back-up
gigs (notably an unfortunate duet with Eddie Money on “Take Me Home
Tonight” that rehashed the “Be My Baby” chorus) and some oldies concerts, Spector
lost her career. “Everybody knows for 30 years this guy has held
me back,” she says.
But lately, interest in the 1960s girl-group revolution has bubbled up in
indie-rock circles. Spector has found a new audience. Her new record on the
Kill Rock Stars label, the nurturing home to uncompromising artists like
Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney. “She Talks to Rainbows,” her first new
material since “Unfinished Business” (1987), features a cover of the Beach Boys’ “Don’t Worry Baby,” which Brian Wilson wrote for her, as well as songs by Joey Ramone and dead junkie rocker Johnny Thunders.
Spector, who now lives with her husband and manager, Jonathan Greenfield,
is resolutely upbeat about her comeback. She recently talked to Salon Arts
& Entertainment from her home in Connecticut.
How did you hook up with Kill Rock Stars? That’s not exactly the label one would associate with the reigning queen of the girl groups.
Well, first of all, they’re all about the music and all I care about in my professional career is the music. Kill Rock Stars allowed me to put out a real genuine rock ‘n’ roll record. At this point in my career, I’m not interested in making people rich, like publishers and writers and producers. I’ve done enough of that.
So did they come to you? Because it’s not exactly like you’ve been active in the music world recently.
I think Joey Ramone approached them, and he approached me at the same time. And I was into it right away. First of all, the name of the label, I just love so much. What a great name. It’s like: Boom. Kill Rock Stars.
How did you and Joey hook up?
I had first met Joey one night at [Manhattan club] the Continental in 1997, and we sat there telling each other stories. He told me what he had done with Phil Spector [the Ramones album "End of the Century"], and I told him some stories of my own. So we sat there for hours, and we just knew we had to do something. From that first meeting, I totally loved working with Joey, it was a real collaboration.
Have you listened to other bands that record with Kill Rock Stars?
I heard Sleater-Kinney. I thought they were really cool. I liked their style: I thought they had a sound of their own, and that’s so important.
What’s going on with you and Phil now? I know there have been some lawsuits, both about your music and royalties and about your children.
I have three adopted children with Phil, and for years I was fighting in court with him over being able to see my kids. I was always going back and forth to California, going to court, and I was never able to get a project going. Back 20 years ago, I was recording with Bruce Springsteen, and his producer called me and said I had to be in the studio the next day to finish the sessions, and I couldn’t. I had to be in court, in California. All this took like 10 years out of my life. But I don’t really like to discuss Phil anymore.
Does all that conflict make it hard to hear some of your songs from the Ronettes?
I love my songs, let’s not get crazy here. I love “Be My Baby.” I love the fact that 35 years later, I still hear my songs on the radio. So don’t get me wrong, I love my songs, and I still love hearing them. That’s history, baby.
What are your favorites?
Probably “Walking in the Rain” and “Be My Baby.” “Walking in the Rain” is the first song where you could hear my voice, and I still love that. And “Be My Baby,” it’s so upbeat, sort of cha-cha-cha; when I hear it, it makes me know I am still alive, like I didn’t waste all those years. I hear songs like that and I don’t regret everything in the past, I’m not so bitter.
This new release is just an EP. Do you have more stuff in the works?
We’re just getting started, hon. This is a slow way of getting back into it, of people getting to know who I am again. Because people are going to want to hear more of the genuine rock ‘n’ roll. The acts I see today, they’re not rocking and rolling. I mean, Janet Jackson? She’s like Michael Jackson with hair. And what’s her name, Britney, Whitney something?
Britney Spears?
Right. She’s so obviously a packaged act; she won’t be around for long. When we started, we didn’t do it for the money, we didn’t do it to be packaged, all we wanted to do was rock ‘n’ roll, to have fun, and we did. Today, they’re just up there for the money, just packaged and be gone. I see the Ricky Martin thing, and everything is like, just packaged for this moment. Where are they going to be 10 years, 20 years from now?
What bands out there today do you like?
I liked No Doubt. I was really getting into them; I thought they were awesome, and then next year they weren’t even around. I’m so lucky; [nowadays] the bands and the singers don’t go out and learn how to perform live. Stage performing is a dying art form. People are going to wake up one day and not know what rock ‘n’ roll feels like: the sweat, the energy, the sexual tension.
Do your own kids like the music you’re making now?
They love it. I bring them to some of the live shows, and they absolutely love what I do. But the music they really like is rap music. I just took them to see Honeycomb, what’s his name? Puffercomb?
Puff Daddy?
Puff Daddy. And he made the audience do all the work! I felt like they should have been paying us. It ended, and I was like, “What was that?” No encores, they just walked off. I couldn’t believe it. All these rap artists, they shout, “Put your hands in the air like you just don’t care!” If I hear that again I think I’ll puke. When I do a concert and people put their hands in the air, they’re doing it on their own. The people need to feel the music. That’s what’s so important, and that’s what is missing. You have to let the audience feel you, you have to let them feel the love, feel the rock ‘n’ roll, feel the energy. Every act I see, their whole act is choreographed. I’m sick of seeing these dancers. The only reason they have them is they don’t have enough talent to get people dancing themselves. I mean, Honeycomb, Puff Daddy, whatever his name is, he’s up on this thing, on this big swing and I’m thinking, “Where am I? At ‘Tarzan’?” It’s just stupid to me.
What are your five favorite rock ‘n’ roll bands of all time?
Ooh, that’s hard. My favorites? Let’s see. The Rolling Stones, definitely. They’re completely amazing. The Ramones. The Beatles. How many is that?
Three.
Ummm … Jimi Hendrix. And Elvis. There you go, baby doll.
Sharps & Flats: “Baby One More Time”
BY JON DOLAN
(08/27/99)
First, Jon Dolan ignores a good decade’s worth of bitch-slapping,
ho-exhorting rap music to pin Limp Bizkit as “grimly misogynistic,”
totally ignoring the fact that their “Nookie” single doesn’t mention one
word about retribution toward the singer’s mythical girlfriend who’s put
his tender heart in a blender. Then he decides that Britney Spears’
“Hit me, baby, one more time” means that she, in fact, wants the aforementioned
bitch-slapping.
Was Pat Benatar also asking to be whapped upside the head in “Hit Me
With Your Best Shot”? Perhaps the time-honored metaphor of
being “bowled over” or “blindsided” by love, passion, etc., is simply being
used yet again. There’s even an official word for it: “lovestruck.”
– Hannah Kerby
Sterling, Va.
Jon Dolan’s commentary on Britney Spears’ pop hit “Baby One More Time” was so
appropriate. I’ve never gotten a grip on what she is trying to imply
with that chorus. The line “Hit me, baby, one more
time” plays into the frighteningly rampant sentiment among teens these
days that jealousy equals love, and
that anger as a result of that jealousy equals proof of that love.
Violence then becomes misunderstood as an expression of tenderness,
commitment, love, devotion, vulnerability, and caring. In fact, of
course, it is just the opposite. But lessons learned at these
sensitive ages are hard to undo.
I’m so afraid that young women in America, despite
the choices we’re taught to thank feminism for, are learning to accept a horrific set of rules at an
age when freedom should be the very nourishment of a young person’s heart.
Spears seems to me a tragic figure waiting to happen, like a
child star who has to rebuild an identity after the inevitable crash of an artificial one — a Dana Plato, a Drew Barrymore. I hope Spears manages not to
evolve into this stereotype. But more importantly, I worry about the
girls out there who furiously covet her popularity. I worry about their
loneliness and what it will make them do.
– Elizabeth Randolph
Stalking Gates
BY JANELLE BROWN
(08/25/99)
Janelle Brown suggests that Ken Auletta’s feature in the New Yorker, much like Rivlin’s book,
“posits itself as an examination of Gates’ attempt to
‘upgrade’ his public persona and company image.” But judging from the topic matter
and tone of both these pieces, as reported by Brown, they could be better described
as being part of Gates and Microsoft’s revisionist PR attempts.
Fixating on the colorful personalities who’d like to have Bill’s head while giving short shrift to the real issues –
including those leading to the DOJ charges — plays perfectly in the eyes of
Redmond. Portrayal of Gates as some kind of peculiar “geek” just furthers the attack on real history, and handily shifts the
focus. Hey, Redmond’s happy (even if it says otherwise).
– Dick Busch
New York
Is the Web “contracting”?
BY SCOTT ROSENBERG
(08/26/99)
Scott Rosenberg questions
the implications of the recent Los Angles Times research.
But for me, the whole picture became clear right around this sentence:
“That report found that ‘the most popular Web sites command by
far the biggest share of Internet traffic.’”
So what is so revolutionary, so earth-shatteringly new,
about something so recursively redundant?
If the most popular Web sites didn’t get the biggest share of
Internet traffic, then what would we be defining popular to mean?
Rosenberg is right on the money: This research is no big deal.
– Erskin L. Cherry
The Clinton marriage
BY JAKE TAPPER
(08/26/99)
My goodness, you’d think that Bill Clinton invented
adultery, the way we’ve heard the mightily self-righteous and hypocritical
members of the anti-Clinton contingent harangue him over it. But you know what?
The smear boys have succeeded: They have made an otherwise sane guy
like Jake Tapper think that people like Gennifer Flowers and Kathleen Willey are
telling the whole unadulterated truth.
Bill Clinton, under oath, ‘fessed up to one sexual
encounter (that did NOT result in consummation) with Gennifer Flowers many moons ago.
A Penthouse magazine article from way back when quoted her friends
as saying that it was indeed an attempt at a quick fling on her part that
failed, hence her desire for revenge: Not only is she a lifelong Republican,
she’s also a woman used to being able to wrap men around her little finger,
and when this one refused to wrap, she got angry.
Alas for her, her story falls apart upon examination. For instance: She says the affair started in 1979 in a certain
Little Rock hotel. Trouble is, the hotel wasn’t built until 1982. Oops.
Flowers has told lie after lie after lie — far more than Bill Clinton
could even dream of telling — yet you hold her credibility in greater esteem
than Bill Clinton’s.
The GOP figures that they can keep up the crap barrage under the principle
that “where there’s smoke, there’s gotta be a fire.” But in the case of all
the phony “scandals” — from TravelGate to FileGate to Whitewater itself — the
smoke’s all coming out of some very-well-financed smoke machines.
– Tamara Baker
St. Paul, Minn.
Christopher Andersen does not mention one solid source, yet we are
suppose to believe anything mentioned in this book. Yes, Clinton-haters
believe such rubbish, but they believe anything negative about them.
Tapper mentions Bob Woodward and how his book backs up Andersen’s. But as
mentioned in the latest Brill’s Content, Woodward’s sources and direct quotes
are as vague and questionable as Andersen’s.
Also, you seem to give validity to the book because the Clintons do not
disclaim it. Past experience shows denials lead to more attention,
more questions and more book sales for Andersen.
The definition of nonfiction is compromised when we include
these books in that category.
– Linda Sparks
John McCain plays Dumbo
BY JAKE TAPPER
(08/26/99)
Jake Tapper forgot one elephant/gun statistic. The number of elephants
that have prevented someone’s wife from being
raped and having her throat slit: 0.
By the way, don’t forget on the same day the Jewish center shooting
happened, another freak in Israel drove his car over and killed 15 people who were
of a different religion. Having his car registered didn’t prevent it.
Also, don’t forget that all the guns Buford used at the Jewish center
were already illegal in California. That didn’t prevent it either.
– Lance Larsen
Espionage without evidence
BY JEFF STEIN
(08/27/99)
What I think Jeff Stein’s article is implying is that 1) if Chinese
intelligence did get any valuable information out of Wen Ho Lee, they probably
used methods so indirect and subtle that the poor man wasn’t even aware of
what he was giving them, and 2) whatever they got from him was probably so
incremental as to be the intelligence equivalent of one piece of a 500-piece
puzzle. And for this he’s lost his job and might still be prosecuted and
imprisoned. Spying without espionage. Collaborating without intent. How clever. It’s almost
like spying by witchcraft! I guess it’s time for a witch hunt.
– Vic Jang
Rag vs. rag
BY JENN SHREVE
(08/27/99)
Thank you for Jenn Shreve’s Skeptic vs. Fate comparison, which reminded me of
the old Spy vs. Spy bit in Mad magazine, and for characterizing us as the
obvious quality “rag” of the two. I will gladly take readers who prefer the
insights of the brilliant and iconoclastic social psychologist Carol Tavris
over those who would rather read what Jing, the psychic parrot, has to say
(or is that think?) on anything, including cats. To be fair to us, Shreve
chose one of our more conservative and academic issues to analyze, but the
point is well made. We scientists and skeptics should take a lesson from
the tabloid rags like Fate — that if we want to appeal to broader and larger
audiences, we need a little sex appeal.
– Dr. Michael Shermer
Publisher, Skeptic magazine
I think what’s needed is a glossy, populist skeptical magazine: a magazine
with high production values and lots of eye-catching graphics, and written in a
language accessible to the average person. Call me an optimist, but I find
most folk are looking for information in a manner they understand. They do
want to learn, they just don’t want to work at it. That’s a
tough order to fill, but it’s one that no one has attempted.
However, as you suggested in your article, people also want
to believe in Bigfoot, UFOs and governmental conspiracies. These make the
world less mundane. Perhaps that desire is too great — hence the
popularity of Fate, Fortean Times and dozens of trash tabloids. Perhaps Skeptic
magazine has it right, and expensive graphics would only make a skeptical magazine
economically unfeasible. I don’t know if a populist skeptical magazine would
sell, nice graphics and all, but it would be nice for
someone to at least try. And having Gillian Anderson on the cover couldn’t hurt!
– Allan Goodall
Toronto
Edward Said to respond to claims he’s not a true Palestinian
BY CRAIG OFFMAN
(08/26/99)
But of course Edward Said is not a “true Palestinian.” Said is far too sophisticated and refined for that.
His loyalties are to aesthetics and linguistics; In that sense, he is more French than anything
else. His sensibilities are those of the dandy; at once
too complex (intellectually) and simple (emotionally naive)
to be a “true Palestinian.” As an intellectual,
he is attracted to the idea of Palestine; as an
artist, it captures his imagination. That is all.
– Yahia Samir Lababidi
It hardly matters who actually owned the house in
Jerusalem or where Said went to school. Said’s
personal history is only significant as an example of the tale of his
people. Other people certainly did go through similar hardships, except
they can’t write like him.
Still, I think it’s interesting to ponder why is it that the most
eloquent voice of the Palestinians is a man who is so unrepresentative
of his people. As an Episcopalian, he is part of a tiny minority in a
nation where religious affiliation is extremely important. Having lived
most of his life in Egypt and the West, he has hardly experienced
firsthand such seminal events in his people’s history as the Six-Day
War and the Intifada.
– Micha X. Peled
If the gazillion-selling Backstreet Boys seal themselves and their fans in a sonic terrarium of soundboy solitude and stark sentimentality, Lolita star Britney Spears — who shares the same producer — allows something else to step into her world. As the Crystals would say, it feels like a kiss. Her intruder is self-subjection at best, physical violence at worst, and she implies that she’s gotta have it.
Much of Ms. Teen USA’s fame is centered around the line “Hit me baby one more time.” And while the vocal hook might seem like a coded hip-hop sexual entendre, given the new-conservative culture that produced the Louisiana native, it’s hard to imagine that it means anything except for exactly what it says: “Hit me.” In suburban America, where the song blew up, it’s a Stepford-whelp male fantasy with nasty implications, a teenybopper corollary to Limp Bizkit’s “Nookie.” Just as that band’s front man, Fred Durst, has drained hip-hop of everything but its viscera and darkest misogyny, Spears’ inventors have turned back the clock to a time before the post-femme Spice Girls and determined diva Monica raised the bar for new, aggressive female pop singers.
“(You Drive Me) Crazy” is a brilliant snatch of boilerplate electro rock, and the post-Beenie Man/Shaggy rasta-twirp vibrations of “Soda Pop” twirl and flaunt with kicky bliss. But every song, especially the gloppy ballads (“Born to Make You Happy”), systematically bulldozes our baby’s agency. Where other contemporary lite pop stars like Natalie Imbruglia dream of approaching a Dusty Springfield plane where raw vocal-emotional intensity bullies out everything but the intensity itself, Spears just wants to remind us that Tiffany did not vanish in vain. Vocally, her niche makes her the oldest teen in America — a 17-year-old bringing kids half her age the gospel that you’re never too young to grow up too fast, basically Mike Eisner’s worst nightmare — but her fabricators seem to have no need to program in any of the seemingly hard-won maturity that makes Monica special, let alone a dash of the Spice Girls’ pussy positivity.
So, in the first single she’s letting you kick the tar out of her, and on the next one (“Sometimes”) you’ve got her running and hiding in terror. Eventually, it gets to the point that even the most simple “I miss you/I’ll be there/I’ll popmail you some digicam shots of the boob job my mom bought me”-style sentiments become quite spooky. Spears might sound as if she’s trying to sing like a real, live, all-growed-up dance-pop diva who can get into real live clubs and even buy drinks, too, but she really just sounds like a Backstreet Girl — under your thumb.
