THE
LAST OF THE ROCK STARS – Ronnie Spector (Laughing Outlaw)
Please, if there is a god of rock (and in a fair world his name is probably
Joey or Dee Dee), don’t
let this one slip under the wire unnoticed. Nine years after her last
public recording - an EP on Kill
Rock Stars that
was largely a 
collaboration with the late Joey Ramone - and 19 years (count ‘em)
after her last LP, the original Ronette emerges into the light with this, her
new album. Ronnie Spector is rock and roll’s Original Bad Girl, a unique
and enduring vocal talent and A Survivor of so many things.
Success, for one. As the focal point of the best of the girl groups, The Ronettes,
she was a bona fide superstar in the ‘60s, scoring multiple top 10 hits
on both sides of the Atlantic and sharing bills with bands like the Stones (who
insisted they join them for one UK tour). Success breeds many things and for
Ronnie, one of them was being married to ace producer Phil Spector.
According to her tell-all autobiography, Ronnie’s
career famously atrophied when the wig-wearing “first
tycoon of teen” (thanks very much Tom Wolfe) imprisoned her in their L.A.
mansion.
One of the many stories that fell out of the ex-Mr Spector’s relationship
with the Ramones was his gun-toting demand of Marky Ramone to “take my
wife off your chest” when the drummer rocked up to Chateau de Looney Tunes
in a Ronettes T-shirt. So when they say Mr Spector was (and probably
still is) a string section short of a Phil-armonic orchestra, they're probably
shooting straight (so to speak). Still, he did radically change the concept
of studio production for evermore, so let’s not speak ill of the incarcerated
(at least not until the jury’s returned a verdict).
It’s pretty evident that, success notwithstanding, the Ronnie of the ‘60s
and ‘70s had a hard life, so it’s all the more remarkable that she’d
bounce back in the ‘90s and ‘00s. One of the things that sustained
her was the support of Joey Ramone and producer/guitarist Daniel Rey. Joey gave
Ronnie a song (“She Talks to Rainbows”) for her 1990s EP and gave
her extra cachet with contemporary rock audiences by singing her praises to anyone
who’d
listen and casting her on the bill of one of his Birthday Bashes. Daniel Rey
loved her work so much that he signed on as a member of her touring band, and
he and Joey are among the many contributors to this album.
"The Last of the Rock Stars" is a mature work - which is code for it being well-crafted
and thought out. Some of the collaborators include a few buzz bands (The Greenhornes,
The Ravonettes, Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), a punk with a pop heart
(Joey Ramone) and some old hands (Keith Richards, Patti Smith), the prescence
of whom does nothing to harm the album's indie or mainstream acceptability. Being
brutally honest, Keef and Patti's cameos are all but anonymous. The core of this
record is the star and when she she breaks loose vocally on the gritty opener
"Never Gonna Be Your Baby" or the playful re-working of "Hey Sah Lo Ney", you
know this is a winner.
It's a contemporary sounding album that for the most part avoids being mundane.
"Ode to L.A." is positively Spectoreseque in its borrowing from the Wall of
Sound. Unlike his worst moments, there's no overplaying. If there are disposable
moments, they're rendered as such by high points like Johnny Thunders' "You
Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" (reprised from the "She Talks to Rainbows"
EP, with Joey duetting) and the radical re-working of the Ramones' "Here Today
Gone Tomorrow". This is a jarring listen on first run-through for anyone raised
on the original, as the new version comes complete with doo-wop vocal colourings
and stylized guitar, but it's imbued with passion and a sassy world-weariness
that gives it a whole new dimension. It might be the best Ramones cover ever,
and thankfully it never made it out of the studio in time to slum it with all
those dodgy rock
stars on that commercial tribute of a few years ago.
There's some
of notable producers involved - Richard Gottehrer (Blondie), Daniel Rey
(Ramones) - and four studios, but the feel is even and bright. The rockier
tunes yield towards the end to the autobiographical Latin soul of "Girl
From the Ghetto" and the torch song strains of "Out In the Cold Again",
so for me the album slides away quietly rather than closes emphatically.
Punk it is not. Don't let that deter you from chasing this down. It could
be one of your most rewarding listens of the year.
–
The Barman
2/3