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NEdra Talley Ross wasn’t a household name anymore, but she was once upon a time. When she turned 18 in January 1964, George Harrison was among the guests who helped her celebrate. He and his cousins were carried, surrounded, loved. For she and her cousins were the Ronettes, a girl group above all others, the sound of teenage emotions growing up, symphonic pop. Nedra was the last Ronette and now she is gone.
Nedra’s siblings were Veronica and Estelle Bennett, and the three of them had been singing and dancing and acting for as long as they could remember. He was just Ronette between 1963 and 1967, but within a few years he had some of the best songs ever written: Be My Baby, Walking in the Rain, Sleigh Ride and more. Not that he was taken with her Phil Spectorwho made them. “I wasn’t interested in him, and he didn’t impress me with what he was saying, he didn’t scare me with what he was doing,” Nedra told me when I interviewed her for Christmas last year. “He was arrogant, and who wants to deal with someone who is arrogant?”
As I spoke to him, the effects of dementia were evident. But her daughter, Heather, felt it would be good for Ross to reminisce about the old days after a few tragic years in the death of her husband of almost 60 years, and illness. The memories came flooding back: she remembered how people loved Ronette’s beehive hairstyles.
“They really want to know who you are and touch you,” he said. They looked at our hair and said, ‘Is this true?’
I laughed. But you were Mr. Ronette. You were the best looking group in the history of pop music!
He laughed, and there was a little sauce in his voice. “Now, where was he?” you looking at us?”
Nedra had no lineage. What emerged were memories triggered by questions; half-images that may disappear as they move. Like the aunt in New Jersey, who fought the forces when she wanted Mr. Ronette to expand the concerts: “They were like, ‘No, we have another program that we agreed to do.
After a while I spoke to Heather, who told me more about her mother’s amazing life. Although Nedra moved away from pop fame when she met her husband Scott Ross, she found a different kind of fame when the couple became famous in the Christian area. They had bought a barn, turned it into a church.
“It was the ’70s, so it was a hip church, and it was packed,” Heather said. “It wasn’t unusual – my father was like a mic act and my mother sang, and the music was different, it had rock’n’roll music. He started preaching on cruises, Scott became a famous TV minister, and Nedra got her second act.
I asked Heather, a little awkwardly, if Nedra put sexuality behind her when she embraced the Lord. He laughed as if it was a very stupid question. “There is no denying it,” he said. My mother used to come to school in a fur jacket and tight jeans. People craned their necks to see.
I talk to a lot of musicians from the 70s and 80s. Many of them have made pop music their life, and at this point what is important to them is to take care of their lifelong legacy in music. Nedra had several years of popular music, and although she fought hard to get her money back in a lawsuit against Spector that she and her bandmates ultimately lost, a legacy didn’t seem to be a problem for her in her later years. Yet his voice, his band, is still heard around the world – especially at Christmas time, when the Ronettes help A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector listen in stores, radio stations and TV shows.
Instead, he enjoyed what the songs meant to families. “When I signed autographs, I made it very personal.” And many people said, ‘My mother used to listen to you,’ or, ‘My father used to listen to that all the time.’ I was proud of this because it is a fast-moving business.”
I was talking to Nedra about Christmas carols, so it made sense to ask her what her favorite gift was as a child. “A blue Schwinn bike. My room was next to the (front) door, so I heard a noise, and I ran to the bed to see if Santa Claus was there – and he wasn’t, but it was my dad bringing the bike. It was amazing.
The Ronettes were amazing: the platonic idea of a girl group. Their records will live on, as they have for over 60 years. And every time we hear them, we will remember the amazing girls who made them.
