R.I.P.: Ronnie Spector, Iconic Lead Singer for The Ronettes

Ronnie Spector August 10, 1943 – January 12, 2022

Ronnie Spector, iconic lead singer for ’60s girl group hitmakers The Ronettes, has died at age 78 after being diagnosed with cancer.

A statement from the family was released on Spector’s website confirming her passing, reading, “Our beloved earth angel, Ronnie, peacefully left this world today after a brief battle with cancer. She was with family and in the arms of her husband, Jonathan. Ronnie lived her life with a twinkle in her eye, a spunky attitude, a wicked sense of humor and a smile on her face. She was filled with love and gratitude.”

With high-piled hair, tight clothes and seductive looks, the three young women of the Ronettes — Ronnie, born Veronica Bennett; her sister, Estelle; and their cousin Nedra Talley — transformed the virginal model that had defined female pop groups since the 1940s.

And in songs like “Be My Baby,” a No. 2 hit in 1963, they sang with thin but powerful voices of street-smart romance (“We’ll make ’em turn their heads everyplace we go”), over the swelling “wall of sound” production of Phil Spector.

The song became an icon of 1960s pop that seemed to reveal both innocence and grit, and it earned constant admiration from fellow musicians, according to The NY Times.

Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, in his speech inducting the Ronettes into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, described hearing the group warming up backstage when they shared touring bills in the 1960s. “They could sing all their way right through a wall of sound,” he said. “They didn’t need anything.”

Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, who modeled his own work as a producer after that of Mr. Spector, recalled in 2013: “I was driving and I had to pull over to the side of the road — it blew my mind. I started analyzing all the guitars, pianos, bass, drums and percussion. Once I got all those learned, I knew how to produce records.”