The Ronettes grew up in New York City’s Spanish Harlem. The girl group was built around lovely lead singer Veronica Bennett (later Ronnie Spector) and was rounded out by her older sister Estelle and their cousin Nedra Talley. Most of the recordings on this long-player were first issued at the start of their career in 1961-63 as singles on the COLPIX and MAY labels, produced by the legendary Stu Phillips.
When their first two singles came out, The Ronettes were still named Ronnie & The Relatives. They had made their breakthrough during a Joey Dee & The Starliters show at the Peppermint Lounge in Manhattan, singing Ray Charles’ What’d I Say. They stayed at the Peppermint Lounge for weeks, changing their name to The Ronettes early on. The girls created their iconic look by wearing exaggerated eye makeup and teasing their hair to unbelievable proportions. “We’d look pretty wild by the time we got out onstage,” Ronnie later recalled.
The COLPIX and MAY singles failed to hit, so their contract ended in 1963. Producer Phil Spector was very interested in signing The Ronettes. He surrounded them with his legendary ‘Wall of Sound’ and the hits came in abundance, beginning with the vocal trio’s immortal Be My Baby. COLPIX still had The Ronettes’ early recordings in its possession, and ‘The Ronettes Featuring Veronica,’ an album made up of those tracks, was issued in 1965 in the US, Holland and Great Britain, shortly after Spector released the group’s only studio album on his PHILLES label.