In Be My Baby, Ronnie Spector presents a wild ride of a memoir that moves at a breakneck speed. Whether Ronnie, the lead singer of the 1960s girl group the Ronettes, describes hanging out with the Beatles at a 1964 sex party ("I may have been dumb back then, but I knew when it was time to get up off a guy's lap," she writes), having cocaine-laced sex with David Bowie or being kept prisoner in her 23-room mansion by husband Phil Spector for five years, Spector has a knack for compelling storytelling.
Much of the memoir focuses on her courtship and eventual marriage to Phil Spector. She lost her virginity to him while listening to a Ronettes record. "And every two minutes and fifty seconds," she writes, "Phil would reach over from the bed and lift the needle back to the beginning of the record." Once married, his paranoia, rages and jealousies take over. Although he threatens to have her killed if she leaves, she is finally able to escape. And like Tina Turner, she attempts restarting a career while being viewed as a has-been.
Originally published in 1990, this revised edition includes a new foreword by Keith Richards (replacing Cher's original) and a very short, 11-page postscript covering the last 32 years. This includes winning a $2.6 million lawsuit against Phil Spector for back royalties; the Ronettes' induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; and Phil's 2021 death in prison. Ronnie Spector died at 78 in January 2022--before this republication but after recording the audiobook. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant