Biografie

Friend Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys wrote "Don't Worry Baby" specifically for her (1964).

Lead singer of the 1960s rock/pop vocal girl group The Ronettes.

Ranked #67 on VH1's Greatest Women of Rock N Roll,.

Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, as a member of The Ronettes, on 3/12.07.

Resided in Danbury, CT.

You would have to ask Phil Spector [about the glass coffin in the basement]. He told my mother he had it, but I never went down to the basement. Do you think I'd go down there and look at my own coffin?

I used to wish I could get my hands on [Amy Winehouse] and show her how to do a proper beehive. She came to one of my shows. I was singing "Back to Black" and there was a tear in her eye.

I think I was [the godmother of punk]. In the '70s it started, and I'd go to [Manhattan music venue] CBGB and see Blondie and the Ramones, and they were calling me up onstage. I didn't know punk, but they knew me. Everybody knew me, but I didn't know anybody--Patti Smith and all those people who were punkers. I didn't get it. It was like Amy Winehouse, they wanted to be like me.

Nobody calls me Veronica unless I go to California. A few people there only knew me as Veronica, such as my ex-husband's [Phil Spector] secretary--I was out there [recently] and she left me a card saying, "Hello, Veronica!" But my relatives called me Ronnie. I used to read the Betty and Veronica comics, and Veronica was called Ronnie, so I wanted to be Ronnie, too. It's a cute name.

The "bad girl" came from when The Ronettes would walk out onstage and we didn't have a hit record yet and all the other groups did--Marvin Gaye, The Crystals. We didn't have a hit record, but we had attitude. When the three Ronettes walked onstage, people went nuts because we were different. We wore tight dresses when everyone else wore those flared dresses, we had long hair when people had short hair; it was like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones wearing suits--that's what made them different. The Stones got the long-hair idea from us, when they supported us on tour in the UK in 1964. I love having attitude onstage, and the "bad girl" thing still runs through my entire show.