Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that can help answer the question.
Query: Who was the leader singer of The Ronettes?
Phil Spector decided to keep lead singer Ronnie Bennett in California to record "Baby, I Love You" while the other two Ronettes, Estelle Bennett and Nedra Talley, went out on the tour with Dick Clark. Ronnie's cousin, Elaine, took her place on the tour while Ronnie recorded the song at Gold Star Studios in California. Since the other Ronettes were unavailable for recording, Spector used Darlene Love and Cher to complete the backing vocals. The song also featured Leon Russell on piano. "Baby, I Love You" peaked at number 11 in the UK during January 1964, at a time when the Ronettes were touring the UK as the support act to the Rolling Stones.
In the 1970s, Renaissance defined their work with folk rock and classical fusions. Their songs include quotations from and allusions to such composers as Alain, Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Giazotto, Maurice Jarre, Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Renaissance records, especially "Ashes Are Burning", were frequently played on American progressive rock radio stations such as WNEW-FM, WHFS-FM, WMMR-FM, KSHE 95 and WVBR.
On January 10, 1948, 15-year-old Loretta Webb married Oliver Vanetta "Doolittle" Lynn (August 27, 1926 – August 22, 1996), and the two soon relocated to northern Washington in the Pacific Northwest. The happiness and heartache of her early years of marriage would help to inspire Lynn's songwriting. In 1953, Doolittle bought her a $17 Harmony guitar. She taught herself to play the instrument, and over the following three years, she worked to improve her guitar playing. With Doolittle's encouragement, she started her own band, Loretta and the Trailblazers, with her brother Jay Lee playing lead guitar. She often appeared at Bill's Tavern in Blaine, Washington, and the Delta Grange Hall in Custer, Washington, with the Pen Brothers' band and the Westerneers. She cut her first record, "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl", in February 1960.
On March 5, 1980, the film "Coal Miner's Daughter" debuted in Nashville and soon became the No. 1 box office hit in the United States. Lynn crossed over from country music superstar to American legend. The film starred Sissy Spacek as Loretta and Tommy Lee Jones as Mooney Lynn. The film received seven Academy Award nominations, winning the Best Actress Oscar for Spacek and a slew of other top honors, including a gold album for the soundtrack album, a Grammy nomination for Spacek's singing as Lynn, Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music awards, plus several Golden Globe awards. The 1980s featured more hits: ("Pregnant Again", "Naked in the Rain", and "Somebody Led Me Away"). Her 1980 and 1981 albums "Loretta" and "Lookin' Good" spawned these hits. Lynn was the first woman in country music to have 50 Top 10 hits. Her last Top 10 record as a soloist was "I Lie" in 1982, but her releases continued to chart until the end of the decade. Lynn continued to have Top 20 hits throughout the 1980s.
The band was started in the summer of 1969 in the town of Dumfries, Scotland by founder member Alex Wilson who recruited Jimmy Ronnie (guitar) and Ian McDougall (drums). They were joined by singer Mike Waller in early 1970. Wilson, the group's bass guitarist, decided to form a band after seeing a Led Zeppelin concert in 1969 and the band's name was eventually chosen by Wilson from a lyric from King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man". Wilson and McDougall's attendance at Black Sabbath's performance at Dumfries (which Wilson recorded, representing Sabbath's earliest live recording), convinced them to not only cover their entire first album and single live, but to consciously construct their sound around them. The band had originally performed covers by blues rock artists such as Free, Johnny Winter, Ten Years After, and Taste but soon began writing and performing original compositions.
Ronald Wayne Van Zant (January 15, 1948 – October 20, 1977) was an American lead vocalist, primary lyricist, and founding member of the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. He was the older brother of two other rock vocalists: current Lynyrd Skynyrd lead vocalist Johnny Van Zant, and Donnie Van Zant, the founder and vocalist of 38 Special. He was the father of Tammy Van Zant and Melody Van Zant.
Rita Joanne Simons (born 10 March 1977) is an English actress, singer, and model from London, who is known for playing Roxy Mitchell in the BBC soap opera "EastEnders" from 2007 to 2017, when her character was killed off. For her performance on the show Simons received many accolades, including the 2008 National Television Award for Most Popular Newcomer.
Born on April 2, 1952, in Newport, Rhode Island, but raised in Jacksonville, Florida, Wilkeson became a major Beatles fan just as he was becoming a teenager and began learning to play bass guitar in order to emulate his favorite Beatle, Paul McCartney. Wilkeson dropped out of his school band in order to focus on learning the bass at the age of 14 and shortly afterward was approached by a fellow student who told him that her brother was searching for a bassist for his band. Her brother turned out to be Ronnie Van Zant, and soon after, Wilkeson signed on with Van Zant's group, the Collegiates. However, due to plummeting school grades, Wilkeson had to drop out of the group. Soon Wilkeson found himself in another local group, the King James Version. He began to study the "lead bass style" of bassists such as Cream's Jack Bruce, Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones, Jefferson Airplane's Jack Casady, The Grateful Dead's Phil Lesh and the Allman Brothers' Berry Oakley. By the early 1970s, Wilkeson was becoming one of Jacksonville's top bassists. When Lynyrd Skynyrd's bassist Greg T. Walker left the band, Wilkeson was brought in as his replacement.
When Leonard was a boy the Rutherford family moves from Somerset to Monticello, the home of the blind professional touring musician Dick Burnett. In 1914, when Rutherford was 14 and Burnett 31 (date and ages approximate), the older man asked for the teenager to accompany him as a sighted assistant to the nearby Lauren County Fair. Thereafter, Rutherford accompanied Burnett on more (and more distant) trips, becoming a permanent companion after the deaths of his parents. A multi-instrumentalist, Burnett taught young Leonard to play the fiddle, while himself playing banjo and sometimes guitar. As Rutherford improved, it became profitable to range further afield by horse bus and railroad. Eventually Burnett bought a car, which Rutherford learned to drive, thus allowing them to travel in Burnett's words ""from Cincinnati to Chattanooga"" playing ""every town this side of Nashville"".
Lynn was born in 1932 and raised in the mining community of Butcher Hollow, Van Lear, Kentucky.
Loretta was the second of eight children. She was named after the film star Loretta Young. Lynn's father died in 1959 of black lung disease, so he was not able to see her success in the music industry. Her first single, "I'm A Honky Tonk Girl", was released the following year.
George Harvey Strait Sr. (born May 18, 1952) is an American country music singer, songwriter, actor, and music producer. George Strait is known as the "King of Country" and is considered one of the most influential and popular recording artists of all time. He is known for his neotraditionalist country style, cowboy look, and being one of the first and main country artists to bring country music back to its roots and away from the pop country era in the 1980s.
The longest-serving Leader of the Government in the Senate was George Pearce, who held the position for a cumulative total of 15 years in three separate terms between 1914 and 1937. Uniquely, from 10 January to 1 February 1968, the positions of Prime Minister and Leader of the Government in the Senate were held by the same person, John Gorton. After the disappearance of Harold Holt, Gorton – a senator – was elected leader of the Liberal Party and thus ascended to the prime ministership. In line with constitutional convention, he resigned from the Senate to contest a by-election to the House of Representatives.
Neil worked to revive his solo career in the early 1970s. Despite his waning chart appeal in the USA in the late 1960s, he remained very popular as a concert attraction, notably in the UK and Australia. In 2010, as a guest on Australian disc jockey Bob Rogers' radio show, he thanked Rogers and Australian music fans for standing by him during that challenging time: "You know, Bob, in my lean years—I called them "The Hungry Years"—it was Bob Rogers and Australia who welcomed me." Sedaka made several trips to Australia to play cabaret dates, and his commercial comeback began when the single "Star-Crossed Lovers" became a major hit there. The song went to No. 1 nationally in April 1969—giving Sedaka his first charting single anywhere in four years. It also came in at No. 5 in "Go-Set" magazine's list of the Top 40 Australian singles of 1969.
The first major stars of calypso started crossing over to new audiences worldwide in the late 1930s. Attila the Hun, Roaring Lion and Lord Invader were first, followed by Lord Kitchener, one of the longest-lasting calypso stars in history—he continued to release hit records until his death in 2000. 1944's "Rum and Coca-Cola" by the Andrews Sisters, a cover version of a Lord Invader song, became an American hit despite the song being a very critical commentary on the explosion of prostitution, inflation and other negative influences accompanying the American military bases in Trinidad at the time. Perhaps the most straightforward way to describe the focus of calypso is that it articulated itself as a form of protest against the authoritarian colonial culture which existed at the time.
Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegün and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most important American labels, specializing in jazz, R&B, and soul by Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, Ruth Brown and Otis Redding. Its position was greatly improved by its distribution deal with Stax. In 1967, Atlantic became a wholly owned subsidiary of Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, now the Warner Music Group, and expanded into rock and pop music with releases by Led Zeppelin and Yes.
According to Ron Roberts, all the recording dates and titles included in the 1975 edition of his series of Connie Francis discographies were faithful copies of sessions logs compiled at the time by Connie herself. The entire Jewish album was recorded at EMI's Abbey Road studios, together with her preceding release, "Connie Francis Sings Spanish & Latin American Favorites", and subsequent album "More Italian Favorites". It was the last album that could not be completed during the July sessions, and final tracks by Connie were cut in September 1960.
That year, the producers of ABC-TV's successful situation comedy "Happy Days" decided to replace its theme song, Bill Haley and the Comets' "Rock Around the Clock", with a new song written especially for the show. The tune was written by Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox, who also wrote themes for "Love, American Style", "Wonder Woman", "Laverne & Shirley", and "The Love Boat". Omartian was chosen to produce the song, and he recommended Pratt & McClain to record it. Multiple short arrangements were produced for the show and its promotional vehicles, and a full-length version was recorded for popular release.
Georgia Brown, pseudonym of Rossana Monti (born June 29, 1980) is an Italian Brazilian singer noted for her extensive vocal range. She was listed in the 2005 "Guinness World Records" for hitting the highest vocal note and for possessing the greatest vocal range for a female, claimed to be exactly nine octaves from sub>-E1-G10 using scientific pitch notation. However, as of 2013, Tim Storms holds the record for the widest vocal range of any human with 10 octaves, with the caveat that much of Storms's vocal range is infrasound that cannot be heard and that all of Brown's range is within the range of the human ear.
On October 20, 1977, a plane carrying the band between shows from Greenville, South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ran out of fuel outside Gillsburg, Mississippi. The passengers had been informed about potential problems with the Convair CV-240 and were told to brace for a crash. Van Zant died on impact from head injuries suffered after the aircraft struck a tree. Bandmates Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines, along with assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and co-pilot William Gray, were also killed. The rest of the band was seriously injured. Van Zant was 29 years old.
According to former bandmate Artimus Pyle and family members, Van Zant frequently discussed his mortality. Pyle recalls a moment when Lynyrd Skynyrd was in Japan: "Ronnie and I were in Tokyo, Japan, and Ronnie told me that he would never live to see thirty and that he would go out with his boots on, in other words, on the road. I said, 'Ronnie, don't talk like that,' but the man knew his destiny." Van Zant's father, Lacy, said, "He said to me many times, 'Daddy, I'll never be 30 years old.' I said, 'Why are you talking this junk?' and he said, 'Daddy, that's my limit.'" Van Zant's father later noted that, "God was a jealous god. Taking him for reasons I don't know." Ex-bandmate Ed King also reported hearing Van Zant saying he would never live to be 30 years old, saying Van Zant said it so often that he "had gotten sick of hearing it". Lynyrd Skynyrd backup singer JoJo Billingsley recalled that Van Zant had begun referring to himself as "The Mississippi Kid" in the months before his death despite being born and raised in Florida. She noted that, eerily, Van Zant's only connection to Mississippi was the fact that he would ultimately die there.
Thomas William Hamilton (born December 31, 1951) is an American musician, best known as the bassist for the hard rock bands Aerosmith and Thin Lizzy. He has regularly co-written songs for Aerosmith, including two of the band's biggest hits: "Sweet Emotion" (1975) and "Janie's Got a Gun" (1989). Hamilton occasionally plays guitar (e.g. "Uncle Salty”, “Sick as a Dog")sings backing vocals (e.g. "Love in an Elevator") and even lead vocals (Up on the Mountain).
The Ronettes won a Grammy Award in 1965 for "Walking in the Rain". They were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for "Be My Baby" in 1999. The Ronettes were also inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2004 and the People's Hall of Rock and Roll Legends in 2010. The Ronettes' influence on music was significant. In addition to Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen have both cited Ronnie Bennett as an influence. The Ronettes' fashion style was emulated by British musician Amy Winehouse.
It was reported that Phil Spector, in his capacity as a member of the Board of Governors, resisted the Ronettes (and Darlene Love) being nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, although they had been eligible for a considerable time. The alleged reasons included the acrimonious divorce of Ronnie and Spector, in addition to the group's having successfully sued Spector for back royalties. Spector claimed that, apart from Ronnie, the other group members did not appear on their records, and that they did not make the contribution required for induction. While Spector was awaiting trial on a murder charge and out on $1 million bail, the Ronettes were finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 12, 2007, at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. Keith Richards, a longtime fan, inducted the trio. Ronnie Bennett (Spector) and Nedra Talley performed "Baby, I Love You", "Walking in the Rain", and "Be My Baby". Estelle Bennett was present to accept her award, but was not well enough to perform, so Tricia Scotti (a regular backup singer with Ronnie) took her place behind the microphone.
Nedra Talley, now known as Nedra Talley-Ross (born January 27, 1946), is an American singer best known as a former member of the girl group The Ronettes, in which she performed with her cousins Ronnie and Estelle Bennett. She is of African American, Native American and Puerto Rican descent. In 2007, the Ronettes were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Following the successful release of "Walking in the Rain", Philles Records released the group's first studio album, "Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes featuring Veronica", in late 1964. The album proved to be slightly successful, peaking at number 96 on the "Billboard" charts, but it is notable for being the first evidence of Phil Spector publicly promoting lead singer Veronica "Ronnie" Bennett over Estelle Bennett and Nedra Talley. Every Ronettes single after this referred to the group as "The Ronettes featuring Veronica" on the record labels.