Photo: Ronnie Spector (General Artists Corporation; photo by James Kriegsmann) | Veronica Greenfield (born Veronica Yvette Bennett; August 10, 1943 – January 12, 2022), known as Ronnie Spector, was an American singer who formed the girl group the Ronettes in 1957 with her elder sister Estelle Bennett and their cousin Nedra Talley. Bennett fronted the group while record producer Phil Spector produced the majority of their output. The two were married in 1968 and separated in 1972.
Bennett sang lead on the Ronettes’ string of hits in the early-to-mid–1960s, including “Be My Baby” (1963), “Baby, I Love You” (1963), “The Best Part of Breakin’ Up” (1964), and “Walking in the Rain” (1964).
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In 1986, she experienced a career resurgence when she was featured on Eddie Money’s song “Take Me Home Tonight”.
Bennett was sometimes referred to as the original “bad girl of rock and roll”. In 1990, she published a memoir, Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness, Or, My Life as a Fabulous Ronette. In 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Ronettes.
Read more on Ronnie here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronnie_Spector
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Rosa Lee Hawkins of The Dixie Cups
The Dixie Cups are an American pop music girl group of the 1960s. They are best known for a string of hits including their 1964 million-selling record “Chapel of Love”, “People Say”, and “Iko Iko”.
The group hit the top of the charts in 1964 with “Chapel of Love,” a song that Phil Spector, Jeff Barry, and Ellie Greenwich had originally written for The Ronettes. The trio consisted of sisters Barbara Ann and Rosa Lee Hawkins; plus their cousin Joan Marie Johnson, from New Orleans. They first sang together in grade school. Originally, they were to be called Little Miss and the Muffets, but were named the Dixie Cups just prior to their first release.
In 1963, the trio decided to pursue a professional career in music and began singing locally as the Meltones. Within a year Joe Jones, a successful singer in his own right with the Top Five 1960 single “You Talk Too Much,” became their manager. After working with them for five months, Jones took them to New York City, where record producers/songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller signed them to their new Red Bird Records.
The Dixie Cups debut single was the release, “Chapel of Love,” which became their biggest hit reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart in June 1964. “Chapel of Love” sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. In 1987, the song “Chapel of Love” appeared on the Full Metal Jacket soundtrack and in the 1991 film, Father of the Bride. The hit single by The Dixie Cups was ranked No. 279 on Rolling Stone’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
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In 1965, the Dixie Cups moved to the ABC-Paramount record label before a recording hiatus in 1966 temporarily halted their careers. In 1974 the Hawkins sisters moved from New York to New Orleans, where they both began successful modeling careers.
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The Dixie Cups continued to perform and make personal appearances. The current line-up was the Hawkins sisters along with Athelgra Neville, sister of the singing Neville Brothers.
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina swept through Louisiana, flooding much of New Orleans and displacing Barbara and Rosa Hawkins, who subsequently relocated to Florida. Joan Johnson relocated to Texas. Two years later in April 2007, The Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame honored The Dixie Cups for their contributions to Louisiana music by inducting them into The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.
Joan Marie Johnson died in New Orleans of congestive heart failure on October 3, 2016, at the age of 72. Rosa Lee Hawkins died from surgical complications on January 11, 2022, at the age of 77.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dixie_Cups
January 13, 2022| In Memoriam| Barb Dye