RONNIE SPECTOR (1943 - 2022)

Ronnie Spector, the voice behind the girl group, The Ronettes who had big hits in the 1960's with "Baby, I Love You" and "Be My Baby", has passed away on January 12th at the age of seventy-eight after a battle with cancer. Referred to as the "bad girl of rock and roll", Spector had a brief, volatile marriage to producer, Phil Spector who helped bring the group to great success with his unique production style.

Born Veronica Bennett in the Spanish Harlem section of New York, she began singing with her older sister, Estelle and their cousin, Nedra Talley as young girls, first forming a group called the Darling Sisters. The girls managed to get a recording contract with a local label, releasing a few singles that failed to chart. Unhappy at the label, the trio had Phil Spector on their radar and worked to audition for him. He was impressed with their sound, particularly Ronnie, and signed the group, now renamed "The Ronettes", to his label, Philles Records in 1963.

"Be My Baby", written by Spector and the songwriting team of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, was The Ronettes's first official single (after several of their early recordings were credited to "The Crystals") and was an immediate hit, peaking at number two on the the Billboard Top 100 chart. This began their meteoric rise with other hits, "Do I Love You?", "(The Best Part of) Breakin' Up" and "Walking in the Rain" before the group's first album, "Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes featuring Veronica" was released in late 1964 and would ultimately become their only studio album. 

With Spector falling in love with Ronnie, it seemed like he didn't want the Ronettes to become too popular, refusing to release some of their already recorded singles that would go on to be recorded by other groups. By 1967, due to a decline in popularity and internal problems within the group due to Spector's complete devotion to Ronnie, the Ronettes broke up. Not long after, Ronnie married Spector which began years of psychological abuse and being held captive in their Beverly Hills mansion before finally escaping him in 1972.

Spector first tried to restart her career by attempting to reunite with the Ronettes but Nedra and Estelle were not interested in returning to the group. She hired new singers and recorded some songs in 1975 before deciding to go on as a solo artist. After several attempts, Spector recorded her first solo album, "Siren" in 1980 but it didn't get much attention. It would not be until rocker, Eddie Money asked her to perform backing vocals on his 1986 song, "Take Me Home Tonight" and appeared in the music video that Spector enjoyed a brief moment of renewed popularity when the single reached the top-five on the pop chart. She recorded another solo album, "Unfinished Business" the following year but it failed to chart. Spector went on to write a memoir in 1990, "Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness, Or, My Life as a Fabulous Ronette" and was inducted with the Ronettes into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.

IN MEMORIAM

EDDIE MONEY (1949 - 2019)

Eddie Money, the working-class rocker who found chart success in the 1970's and '80's, passed away on September 13th due to complications from esophageal cancer.

He was born Edward Mahoney in Brooklyn, NY and raised on Long Island. As teenager, he performed with several rock bands but after graduating from high school, Mahoney decided to follow in the family tradition and become a police officer. He briefly worked as a trainee at the NYPD before realizing he needed to follow his true passion; music.

In 1968, Mahoney moved to Berkeley, CA., changed his name to "Eddie Money" and played the club scene in the Bay Area. He struggled for a number of years to get noticed until his first big break came when he met music promoter, Bill Graham who helped get the fledgling singer signed to Columbia Records. Money's self-titled debut album was released in 1977 and became an immediate success, selling over two million copies, thanks to the top-forty singles, "Baby Hold On" and "Two Tickets To Paradise".

He would continue to enjoy popularity until the early 1980's when Money's career began to decline due to the distraction of his increased drug abuse. The singer made a major comeback in 1986 with the single, "Take Me Home Tonight". With the label taking more creative control of his music, Money was given this demo to perform which he didn't really like. But he was intrigued by a line in the song taken from The Ronnettes' classic 1963 hit, "Be My Baby". Money managed to track down and convince the then-retired Ronnie Spector to sing on the track. That would help make this tune Money's highest charting single, reaching number four on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and revitalize Spector's music career.

Money made an appearance on an episode of the Netflix series, "The Kominsky Method" last year and on "Real Money", a reality show that featured him and his family on AXS TV. He had also recently recorded a new album called, "Brand New Day" which was scheduled to be released last July but it was put on hold following his stage four cancer diagnosis. Listen to two of my favorites songs from the dynamic Eddie Money:





RIC OCASEK (1944 - 2019)

The co-creator, writer, guitarist and voice behind the new-wave rock band, The Cars, Ric Ocasek passed away on September 15th. He died of natural causes at the apparent age of seventy-five since there has been some dispute over the actual year of Ocasek's birth. Ocasek and his band had been just inducted in to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last year.

Ocasek was born and raised in Baltimore, MD but his family moved to Cleveland, OH when he was sixteen. He had begun college in the state but dropped out after deciding he wanted to seriously pursue music. He met Benjamin Orr, a bass player and vocalist, and they formed a rock band together. The duo relocated to Boston and became a folk-rock group called, Milkwood which featured future Cars member, keyboardist Greg Hawkes. They did record one album but it failed to chart. The three musicians would become a part of other bands where they would meet guitarist Elliot Easton and drummer, David Robinson with them all becoming The Cars in 1976.

After signing with Elektra Records in 1977, The Cars released their self-titled debut the following year. With their unique sound that combined punk, rockabilly and power-pop, The Cars became noticed almost instantaneously and found chart success with such songs like, "Just What I Needed", "Let's Go", "You Might Think", "Magic", "My Best Friend's Girl", "Tonight She Comes" and "Good Times Roll" before the band called it quits in 1988.  Each member went on to pursue individual musical endeavors with Ocasek recording seven solo albums with his most successful being his second in 1986, "This Side Of Paradise". The surviving members of The Cars (Orr passed away in 2000) would reunite in 2010 with an album, "Move Like This" and a tour.

Ocasek is survived by six sons, two from each of his three marriages and his third wife, model Paulina Porzikova who he met in 1984 during the shooting of the music video for The Cars' biggest hit single, "Drive" and they married in 1989. But after almost thirty years of marriage, the couple had separated in 2017.