dedication: Ellie Greenwich (extended remix)

Thinking about Ellie Greenwich yesterday made me think about my love of girl groups from the 60s. I made a playlist of her songs and spent both my train rides listening to The Crystals, The Shangri-Las and The Chiffons. Sadly, not The Ronettes.* Many of the songs that played were part of a box set I have from Rhino Records called One Kiss Can Lead To Another (The box set's title is even taken from a song Ellie wrote, "Good night baby" by The Butterflys). It was my favorite Christmas gift last year. My favorite Greenwich/Barry song is without a doubt, "Out in the streets," which is why I posted that video yesterday morning. It was originally performed by The Shangri-Las and later covered by Blondie, who was hugely influenced by The Shangri-Las and, I think, girl groups in general.

I think triggered my love for girl groups were two things, both at the beginning of my teenage years. In 1986, Eddie Money released a great song called "Take me home tonight," which featured Ronnie Spector of The Ronettes. In it, he name-checked her and The Ronettes great single, "Be my baby" - Eddie sang, "Just like Ronnie sang-" and Ronnie reprised her "Be my little baby." I loved it and remember searching through my family's record collection in search of music by The Ronettes.



The second thing was in 1988, when one of my all-time favorite movies came out: Adventures in Babysitting.. The film opens with Elisabeth Shue as Chris, preparing for a big date by lip-syncing to the classic Crystals song, "Then he kissed me." I. Love. That. Song! It even led me to finding a cheap compilation cassette of girl groups that I remember included "Lollipop" and "Soldier boy" and the marvelous "Dedicated to the one I love." I miss that cassette.

Anyway, the reason for this second post is because I realized that the two songs that ignited my love for the girl groups of the 60s were both Greenwich/Barry compositions. A great gem from the One Kiss collection is a song Ellie recorded herself, "You don't know." I've played that song a lot over the past 24 hours as well. I guess it's strange that in a week where we've lost a major politician like Ted Kennedy and a famous author like Dominick Dunne, it is the loss of this great songwriter, who hasn't made as many headlines, that actually affects me. But my priorities have always been different and Greenwich's music is in my heart and I'm eternally grateful for that.

Ending on an upbeat note, I found this incredibly odd mash-up combining Ellie's recording of "You don't know" with clips from a Disney movie about wood nymphs. But the sound quality is clear and the song is gorgeous, so play it!



Here's a playlist of some of my favorite Greenwich compositions: