Tag: Be My Baby

Ronettes – Be My Baby

Some people have said they cannot comment on this post…some can some cannot…I’ve emailed WP and am trying live chat but of course, it’s not open. So it might let you leave a comment…and it might not

The Ronettes were Veronica (Ronnie) Bennett, her sister Estelle Bennett, and their cousin Nedra Talley. One of the great songs of the sixties.

I’m a huge fan of this song and The Ronettes. I like many of the female groups of the early sixties like The Marvelettes, Martha and the Vandellas, The Shirelles, and the Supremes but no one sounded like Ronnie Spector. But… I’m not the fan that Brian Wilson has been since he heard the song.

Count Brian Wilson as a huge fan of this song. Well, being a fan is an understatement…he was totally obsessed with this song.  He was driving in the 60s when he heard it and had to pull the car over and analyze the chorus. He then bought the single and put it in his home jukebox and played it endlessly. In the seventies, as his fellow Beach Boys would be recording in his basement…he would be blasting Be My Baby at full volume with the curtains closed. One great thing came out of his obsession… it inspired him to write Don’t Worry Baby.

Mike Love remembered Wilson comparing Be My Baby to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. Wilson told The New York Times in 2013 that he had listened to the song at least 1,000 times. Beach Boy Bruce Johnston gave a higher estimation: “Brian must have played ‘Be My Baby’ ten million times. He never seemed to get tired of it.” He also called it the best song ever recorded. Brian Wilson’s daughter Carnie has one distinct memory from her childhood, listening to, and more accurately being woken up with, Be My Baby.

Brian Wilson: “I felt like I wanted to try to do something as good as that song and I never did, I’ve stopped trying. It’s the greatest record ever produced. No one will ever top that one.”

To me, this song is brilliant and one of my favorites… although I wouldn’t go as far as Wilson did. It’s one of Phil Spector’s best-produced songs. The song peaked at #2 on the Billboard 100, #2 in Canada, #2 in New Zealand, and #4 in the UK.

This was the first Ronettes song produced by Phil Spector and released on his label, Philles Records. It also featured Spector’s “Wall Of Sound” production technique, where he layered lots of instruments and used echo effects.

Don’t expect to find B-side gold on many of Spector’s singles. Spector had Tommy Tedesco and Bill Pitman (session musicians) record a throwaway instrumental that he called “Tedesco And Pitman.” Spector made sure the B-sides of his singles were garbage so there was no doubt what song should be played. This also allowed him more studio time to craft the hit.

The future Ronnie Spector was the only Ronette to sing on this. Phil Spector rehearsed her for weeks and had her do 42 takes before he got the sound he wanted. Spector and Bennett got married in 1968, and they divorced in 1974. Ronnie Spector said the home they shared was pretty much a prison for her.

She woke up on her wedding night to workers erecting a barbed-wire fence around the estate. Bars were soon installed over windows, and intercoms in all the rooms. Ronnie was rarely allowed out alone, unless with a life-size dummy of Spector in the passenger seat of her car. But the worst was being unable to perform on stage.

I never heard about Ronnie Spector until the 80s when she appeared on the Eddie Money song Take Me Home Tonight. After that, I looked up all I could about her.

Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich wrote this song. As was his custom, Phil Spector also took a songwriting credit on the track. Producers did that in the 50s and 60s and it was wrong.

One thing I respected about George Martin…he blew the whistle on the hugely successful producer Norrie Paramor in the early sixties to a young David Frost who roasted Paramor on his show “That Was the Week That Was”. Paramor would force artists to record his songs for B sides and also take writers’ credit for others. Frost kept Martin’s name out of it. No one ever found out who dished out the goods to Frost about Paramor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhzZIXvspI4&list=RDAhzZIXvspI4&start_radio=1

Be My Baby

The night we met I knew I needed you so
And if I had the chance I’d never let you go.
So won’t you say you love me,
I’ll make you so proud of me.
We’ll make ’em turn their heads every place we go.

So won’t you, please, be my be my baby
Be my little. baby my one and only baby
Say you’ll be my darlin’, be my be my baby
Be my baby now, my one and only baby
Wha-oh-oh-oh.

I’ll make you happy, baby, just wait and see.
For every kiss you give me I’ll give you three.
Oh, since the day I saw you
I have been waiting for you.
You know I will adore you ’til eternity.

So won’t you, please, be my be my baby
Be my little. baby my one and only baby
Say you’ll be my darlin’, be my be my baby
Be my baby now, my one and only baby
Wha-oh-oh-oh.

So come on and, please, be my be my baby
Be my little baby my one and only baby
Say you’ll be my darlin’, be my be my baby
Be my baby now, my one and only baby
Wha-oh-oh-oh.

Be my be my baby be my little baby.
My one and only baby oh oh,
Be my be my baby oh,
My one and only baby wha-oh-oh-oh-oh.
Be my be my baby oh,
My one and only baby
Be my be my baby oh,
Be my baby now

Max Picks …songs from 1963

1963

We are one year away from blasting off to strange and new lands. This year the radio was picking up a bit. You had the folk explosion and Motown was starting to raise the roof and Stax was rolling also. Some great artists are here plus one that would change the game.

Let’s start off with one of the musical leaders of the sixties who influenced his peers left and right.  22-year-old Bob Dylan released Blowin’ In The Wind which didn’t chart but soon would be covered over 300 times. A standard was born.

I usually favor Stax over Motown but that’s not to say I don’t like Motown because I do. This song is great I loved this song the first time I heard it. It’s Martha and the Vandellas doing Heat Wave. They added a little edge to the song. It was written by the incredibly talented team of Holland–Dozier–Holland.

The Ronnettes were beautiful and talented with a crazy…but well known producer Phil Spector. The group was an influence on the Stones and Beatles. The song was written by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, and Phil Spector.

What do I think of when I hear this song? That would be Animal House.

In 1963 The Kingsmen released a huge single and song that would be an important one in rock history. The original was written and performed by Richard Berry in 1955 and 3 other people covered it before Kingsmen in 1963… but this is the definitive version. Another one of those songs like Gloria…that every bar band has to know.

What is he singing? That debate would get the song banned for a while and even bring in the FBI to investigate. The popularity of the song and difficulty in discerning the lyrics led some people to suspect the song was obscene. The FBI was asked to investigate whether or not those involved with the song violated laws against the interstate transportation of obscene material. The limited investigation lasted from February to May 1964 and discovered no evidence of obscenity.

Last but certainly not least. The future was in the UK and America had no clue. In 1962 they had their first single release with Love Me Do. It peaked at #17 on the UK charts but the next single was released in January of 1963 in the UK. In America, it was released in February of 1963 but it was on a small label called Vee-Jay because Capitol Records in America kept rejecting anything from Britain for the most part. America never heard it because Vee-Jay couldn’t push it enough. It was a brilliant single called Please Please Me. The following year, America and Canada were introduced to the Beatles.

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