August 19, 2020 • 27 mins
The Rolling Stones’ bad boy guitarist dishes deep on his love for Ronnie Bennett, as well as the lengths he went to in order to keep it a secret from the jealous Phil Spector. In addition to his stories about secret trysts, Keith talks X-rated recording sessions, American cops with itchy trigger fingers, and the wrath of Phil Spector.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Blood on the Tracks is the production of I Heart
Radio and Double Elvis. Phil Spector was a musical genius,
one of the most successful record producers of all time.
He's now sitting behind bars, serving a nineteen years to
life sentence for murder. This is his story told by
his so called friends. This is Special Agent Paul Ramon
(00:31):
with the Federal Bureau of Investigation work in case number
double oh four dash ten dash seven four one nine
case subject of Specter Philip Harvey. This information for ten
to the period ending September interview subject to Richards Keith
interviewed number zero dash one one dash five one nine
dash six four zero recall number four data's March thousand
(00:54):
and six. I fell in love with Ronnie Bennett, and
Ronnie Bennett fell in love with me, but we had
to keep it under wraps because their old man, Phil
Spector was a man of prodigious jealousy. She had to
(01:15):
be in her room all the time after the gigs.
In case Phil called still Ronnie and I got after him.
Mick Cotton to her sister, who wasn't so tightly chaperoned.
The Rownetts would be my baby days. Phil was on
top of the world. So was Ronnie. Mick and I
were just getting our first bite in the world, and
ye had to bite back. Ronnie told me later how
(01:37):
insecure Phil was, of his height, was receiving hairline, How
jealousy wasn't of my terrible things, How jealousy was of
most people who had anything he didn't have or could
take away. And I think he did have that insecurity,
was so chronicked that he would go to terrible lengths
to allay his fears. Well, you know, terrible lengths are
(01:58):
the exact sorts of things that brief blood Hucks Chapter three,
(02:28):
Phil Spector and Keith Richards. We were told that we
couldn't talk to the girls. We couldn't even look at them,
(02:48):
you know, shoot a little glance in their direction. Hey there, baby,
how are you doing. We were polite boys, you know,
but we fancied a little fun every now and then.
It's like an edict outlying fun before the fun even started,
and the girls became like forbidden fruit for us. For
me in particular, it was all about Ronnie. I took
(03:09):
one look at her, heard one note from her angelic voice,
you know, and it was it was over. I knew
I was gonna break somebody's role. I was gonna look
at her. I was going to talk to her. You know.
I was a polite boy, mind, but I wasn't that polite.
Phil issued the no fun edict. You know. He was
a man of prodigious jealousy. He telegraphed Andrew and Andrew
log Goldham. You know, Andrew was our manager and our
(03:30):
producer at the time, and this was the nine four
or something. Andrew got the boot from Brian Epstein, you know,
and he helped put the beals together, got them in
their suits after the rough and tumble Hamburg days and all.
He was just a hustler back then, still a kid. Anyway,
Andrew got into some punch up with Brian, and Brian
cut him loose. Andrew didn't give a ship. It only
(03:54):
made him stronger. He made us out of that punch up.
He made the rolling stones. And this is what I
was calling myself. Keith Richard dropped the s. It was
all calculation and that was Andrew's bag. Andrew fancied himself
the London version of Phil Specter. He dressed like a dandy,
wore sunglasses inside, carried the attitude of a scorn genius,
(04:15):
like a big chip on his shoulder. You know, he
thought rock and roll could be art. We weren't long
for the tailored suits. We were polite boys. Again. Yeah,
I know, I keep saying that we were polite, but
we weren't that polite. We didn't want to be the Beetles.
We wanted to be whatever. The opposite of Beetles was
the black hat. All that I got an off track.
(04:41):
I was talking about Andrew and Phil, So wait, I
gotta back up a little more. And the Ronettes came
over to England for a bit of a tour, and
Be My Baby was still a big hit. So the
Ronettes come to England and Phil taps us to open
the shows the actually and before they even get there,
before the plane from New York even touches down, and
(05:02):
he throw, Phil sends his telegram to Andrew. All it
says is keep the stones away from my girls, his girls.
You know that should tell you a lot right there,
teach like he owned them or something. He certainly thought
he did. I'm sure what he meant by that telegram
was more like, keep the stones away from Ronnie. He
(05:23):
could give two ships about a spell and Nedrew, they
arrived in London before Phil, and that's why he sent
the warning. Phil came a little later. Wanted to make
sure you didn't have to worry until they got there,
you know. And so Andrew was very conserved, very aware
of this demand the Phils, and because he thinks so
highly of Phil, wants to impress Phil. Wants Phil to
think he's cool. The girls arrived from the States, and
(05:46):
Andrew keeps coming around to me and Mick, Hello, boys,
are you behaving yourself? And all that. But from the
moment I saw Ronnie, and you hope that's for all?
Phil who right? And she was a sight to behold,
and her voice, her voice was just this is magic.
(06:06):
And I got the same feeling all over my body,
whether I was looking at her or listening to her
singer she walked in a room, or just standing there
next to me. Phil around in London and to put
on the act just for Andrew's sake, you know, make
sure we could keep the gig. But I was doing
all I could to talk to Ronnie with my eyes
all behind Phil's back. Mind you, as a shy boy,
(06:29):
I really was, and Ronnie was a shy thing yourself.
I shot her a glance if you chance, I got
she She received them pretty soon. She was shooting them back.
Phil was like a stern headmaster that you have been
warned not to cross, you know, heads down, lads, pencils up,
quit snickering, headmasters coming. You could feel the pressure of
(06:51):
his gaze, the weight of his presence. As soon as
he was off the plane and backstage at the venues
we're playing this is our second UK tour. I think
he quickly got a with me and Ronnie looking at
each other the way we were, and he decided that
we wouldn't see a soul and she stepped off the
stage that night. I mean, you know, talk to Ronnie.
She'll tell you the stories right there when I told
(07:15):
you it was like an omen of things that were
to come between those two, the lengths to which he
would go to keep people away from her. He heard
a lot about Phil Spector, and we probably heard more
than most, what with Andrew's obsession with him, and all
heard all about his genius, about the way which he
was turning pop music on it's ear. But to us,
(07:38):
to me, he was an obstacle, a barrier. I had
to find my way around over under to the side.
You learned these things, you know, you learn how to
skate in unnoticed, how to work under the radar. I mean,
you don't get into the kind of the trouble that
the Stones got into without knowing how to play the system,
if you know what I'm talking about. I knew that
(07:59):
Ronnie would be my I just needed to figure out
how to play Phil. So speak of playing Phil. We
(08:38):
played a lot with Phil quite a bit in the studio.
You know, my interactions with him weren't just limited to
dodging his jealous case and inciting his jealous rage. When
I think of Phil, I think of Ronnie. Well, I
think Ronnie often, so those memories are right there, man,
right up front, vivid. But I forget the Phil was
there with us more often than you think. He was
(08:59):
in our four prmative years, and he wasn't producing us.
You know, Andrew was producing us, and Phil was there
at Andrew's behast. Phil was oddly unfilled in those moments.
He wasn't trying to control anything. He wasn't trying to
put his walls sound stamp on us anything like that. Now,
he was one of the boys, Fly on the wall,
(09:20):
Fly on the wall, who was given a bass to
player some moraccos to shake. That's filling based on playing
with Fire. Well, it was D two guitar, you know,
a guitar made to sound like a bass. That was
in l A sixty five. I think our Cia studios.
I played acoustic guitar and Mick played tambourine, and then
(09:40):
Jack MEETSI was on harpsichord. Jack MEETSI. You want to
talk about a true genius, Let's talk about Jack for
a minute. The true genius in Phil Spector's studio. Phil
just live vicariously through Jack. You know, his arrangements, his field,
his look, his whole, you know, his his jackanus. Jack
had it boy and Phil wanted it. But I'll come
back to Jack. I'll come back to Jack later. Now, Phil,
(10:03):
Phil was a phils, a great player, very understated, very
very few people know this. They think he just stood
there with his dark sunglasses on and his arms folded,
you know, lording over the studio like some grenade that
could go off at any time. Not that that wasn't true,
you know, but he was a very simple, very tasteful player.
That's him on playing with Fire at base Park. Don't
(10:24):
don't don't don't do That's Phil, that's Phil specter man.
He was really into the Stones. If you had known
how much I wanted to sneak off into the dark
at the end of the street with Ronnie. You know.
He may not liked us so much, but he liked us,
He really did. He really liked us. The music here everywhere,
everyone here in the flesh, Keith Richard and Brian Jones
(10:47):
and the drumlie Wants. When he was in the UK
with the ron Nats on that tour, you know, he
took a meeting with the head of Deck of Records,
Sir Edward lewis a proper English chap, you know, Sir Edward.
He took Andrew with him as a bot for he
wanted to release the Stones music on his Phillies label
in America. So he goes into the stuff you owe
an English office, the walls full of all that antiquity,
(11:08):
you know, and it makes his ass, makes his pitch,
you know, really a begging session more than anything, Sir
Edward Stonewall felt, even with Andrew standing there fills honorary
brit to butter him up. What's this? You know? An
American pilfering our lives. I won't stand for it. England
won't stand for it. That sort of thing, all very
very proper, no emotion, very British. It was like David
asking Goliath for a favor. If David thought that he
(11:30):
was Goliath, right, Phil was fucking wild man, That's how
he was. He was like that. So Phil and Andrew
left that meeting with nothing, nothing from Sir Edward, and
they were just, you know, in a state piste. Phil's
angry at the stuff you old fired with the balls
to say no to him. You know, he said no
to the Phil spectrum man said no right to his face.
And Andrew is angry that he's made himself look like
(11:51):
a fool in front of his hero. And neither of
them are happy, the two of them. They came from
that turtive meeting with Sirrett, went straight into the studio
with us or we were recording that fade Away we.
Phil took out some of his frustration on the pair
of moracas, those moracas here in the song those to him.
(12:13):
He was able to take his mind off things for
a few moments, and Mick dragged him into the other
room to write to the b side a little by little,
but you could tell that the meeting was just bristling
under his skin. He had been rebuffed and he was
told no, when he was used to being in control,
you know, to having the last say. He told people
how to sing and how to play, when to sing it,
(12:34):
when to play. So I know it's stungle. We had
drank as much as the drink in the studio that
we could that night, and the atmosphere got loose. Called
it real gone back then when we get to that place,
you know, real gone. Brother Phil wasn't taking part of
the drink, but he was more than ready to let loose.
He's a little man pent up with all sorts of
(12:55):
big time anchor, ready to unleash, get revenge, that type
of thing. We started riffing on this blue shuffle, very
up tempo. Do doom doom DoD DoD doo doo kink,
that sort of thing. You know, a boy from New
York City. Phil starts ad living on the track, starts
singing about Andrew and how he focks all night. It
(13:15):
sucks all night, you know. He sings taste that pussy
in taste just right, and the band is just rollicking
along right, the well oiled locomotive. You know, we're there.
We're there every even with the pints, even with the booze,
you know, and Mix starts his calm response with Phil,
we had it, man, it was firing. It goes yes, Andrew,
and Phil responds, suck it, Andrew, and Mix shots go
on Andrew and Phil responds, fucking Andrew. And then Phil
(13:37):
takes it to the next level, you know. He sings
something like, come and get it, little Andrew, before Sir
Edward comes and takes it away. Phil starts doing this
impression of blubbering Sir Edward, just this atrocious English accent,
almost incomprehensible, you know, and he's going on about himself
and the Rolling Stones. The Rolling Stones are a great
fucking group. What a low balls. And you know what, man,
(13:59):
Phil would pulled the same ship if Sir Edward himself
had been sitting right there in front of him. It
wasn't drunk, it wasn't high, but he didn't give a damn.
You know, the man did not care. And if you
found yourself on his bad side because well, you know,
you said no to his request to bring the Rolling
Stones to America or you may come funck me eyes
(14:20):
at his girls. Well, ship man, you better watch your back.
We'll be right back after this word, word word. I
(14:47):
found myself in Ronnie's room one day on that UK
to her Strand Palace hotel, and she was packing the
head off to the next stop. I don't even remember
how I did it. You know, I got into her room.
It was a bit of magic, you know, a slight
in the hand, and Phil looked away, and Phil walked away.
Something Phil made like a tree, and I made my move.
I was only twenty, you know, my turtle, next shirt,
all the way up to my chin, my hair down
(15:09):
over my ears. Ronnie was twenty, also a couple of kids.
Every move she made shot electricity through my bones. The
way she smelled, the way she smiled, the way she
packed her shirt and a suitcase on the bed, and
the hotel them. I loved her. You know, listen, man,
a gentleman never tells you know what I mean. But
(15:30):
I will say we got around to do more than
just looking at each other. When we find ourselves alone
without the watchful eye Phil Specter bearing down on us.
I was a bit afraid of his wrath. Was jealousy,
afraid of what he could do to me, to my career,
you know, if he found out, because he was a
(15:53):
music industry into himself at that time. You know what
I mean. I guess the part of me that didn't
give a funk beat out the part of me that
was concerned. You know, we went to anti beetles for nothing.
We did the opposite of what was expected. The world
wanted smooth and we were shop The world wanted clean
and we were dirty. Phil Specter expected that the world
(16:14):
would obey his orders and leave Ronnie alone. But I'm
not the world, am I not? And it wasn't just
his girl that he was all prickly about, right, Phil
wanted my hair too. Man. It was probably more conscious
of the fact that my hair was better than me is,
and the fact that I wanted to get close in
personal with a singer with his girlfriend. The man was
wearing rugs at that point, even back then, not fooling anyone.
(16:37):
You know, he got off the planet heath throw his hands,
shot right to the top of his head and all
that wind. No wonder he had such control issues, you
know what I mean? Ronnie told me later, Caroline jealous wasn't.
Later that year, the Stones finally get across the Pond
for a first tour of America. Who do we call Ronnie?
(16:59):
Of course I made sure I found a number for her.
The philm wasn't watching. It was her mother's number. I think.
We went up to Spanish Charlem the places Ronnie had
told me about, places I had read about making. I
crashed on her mother's living room floor. She made us
bacon and eggs in the morning. We were on our
best behavior. Of course, I was defaulted to my better
(17:22):
behavior around Ronnie. We piled into a red Cadillac with
the girls and went to Jones Beach out on Long Island, America. Man,
it ripped through my hair. America did I've been listening
to American music for so long that I felt like
a new the place already. But it was different being there.
America wasn't all like New York. We weren't received with
(17:42):
open arms just anywhere compact. Brian and me nearly pissing
ourselves in Omaha. Well, we were pissing in the men's
room with the auditorium, holding paper cups of hooch when
he drew his piece on us and told us we
couldn't be drinking in a public building. That's when I
bought my first out on that tour at a truck stop.
(18:02):
Back in those days, the cops were always coming for
musicians on this charge or that. You had to be ready,
ready to defend yourself and ship. You know, I never
knew if I was about to turn a corner with
Ronnie's hand in mine and come face to face with Phil.
Can you imagine? Because I did. I imagined it all
the time with the scenarios play through my head. Phil
Specter so jealous. He had people, he had bodyguards and
(18:29):
aaron men, and yes, man, he had deep pockets. He
had some guy on stage standing right there, so when
the ronnets were done and they began their exit, this
guy could swoop in and take Ronnie by the arm
and keep her away from any and all swinging dicks
in the general vicinity. Phil had power, felt that he
felt it when he was around, and you felt it
(18:50):
when he wasn't around. And I didn't have power, men.
All I have was a bit of a chip on
my shoulder back then, a heart that was bursting for
Ronnie Bennett, and you know, fuck you attitude toward authority.
I've always had that. And you know why, I Phil
Specter at power, right, because he's so damn and secure. Man.
(19:12):
I didn't see Phil at all in New York, but
I felt Ronnie took me amidst C. James Brown at
the Apollo, and I spent a little too much time
with the Phil's face in the audience. I think it
was an absent presence that a lot of people felt
possibility to feel, you know, what could be. So maybe
it wasn't meant to be with me and Ronnie. Maybe
I should have stuck my neck out a little more,
(19:34):
worried about things a little less. And there was also
the entire body of the Atlantic Ocean between us most
times too, that made things impossible. It's the kind of
regret that men write books about, right, And so Ronnie
got a little too close to Phil, believed him a
(19:54):
little too much, believed in him a little too much.
I thought he would continue to champion her as an artist.
You know, she let herself feel love, though I don't
know if love was really what she was feeling. Last
time I ever saw feel spect I just felt a
deep longing for what could have been, what could have
been for me sure, but what could have been for
(20:15):
Ronnie too, that maybe we all would have just been
better off if I had swept a run off her feet,
told Phil Specter that she didn't belong to anybody. September nine, London,
(20:59):
I Can Tina Turn her album River Deep Mountain Highs,
released by London Records in the UK. The album was
scheduled for releasing the States on Philly's Phil Specter's label,
but it was pulled at the last minute when the
title track, also produced by Specter, bombed. Phili Specter's latest
Wagnerian pop Opus took Tina out of her comfort zone
(21:19):
and took Ike out of the picture completely. In the US,
it was a thunderous dud that could be heard from
coast to coast, and it wasn't just because the thing
was drenched in an echo chamber. Across the pond, though
it was a different story. The single River Deep Mountain
high peaked at number three on the UK charts. London
(21:41):
loved it, and so the full length LP with the
same name was soon released by the very man who
had turned down Phil Specter's offer to bring The Rolling
Stones to America just a few years prior, London Records,
an offshoot of the Mighty Decca Records, released Phil Specter's
new single by Kent Tina. Sir Edward Lewis succumbed to
Phil's eight after all. Keith Richards picked up his copy
(22:04):
of the album after being blown away by the single.
Listening to Tina's hurricane vocal, he was struck by the
same feeling he had when he first heard Ronnie Bennett,
who would go on to become Ronnie Specter. He held
the LP jacket his hands, noting the dreamlike images of
Icanina and full Power couple pose on the front. He
(22:24):
turned it over and there on the back cover, standing
in between Varcanina with his hands greedily grasping for control
bobs in the studio was the man who had stood
between him, Keith and a girl. He deeply loved. Ronnie
Specter's face there on the LP made the bad memories
bubble up, the memory Stunned, they curled at the top,
(22:46):
the thoughts of what was or what would never be.
But Keith Richards, with an ass didn't live in the past.
Keith Richards barreled forward. He could barrow forward without Phil
Specter just fine. He didn't need the bad memories. He
did need Kentina, Turner, England love them, Keith love them,
Nick loved them. The Stones wanted them on their stage,
(23:08):
maybe more than Phil Specter wanted them in the studio.
The Stones reached out and found Argentina irritated and stuck
following their ill fated pairing with the fame Phil Specter,
and they needed a change. They needed a direction, They
needed an audience. Keith making the rest of the Boys
could offer them all three. The Stones invited them to
(23:29):
travel Abron filled the opening slot on their UK tour.
You get the audience they deserved, bask and the applause,
escape from under Phil Specter's thomb, and they answered the call,
opened the tour, and then in nineteen sixty nine they
opened for the Stones again in America and the tour
that included the infamous show it out to Mount Speedway
in California, the one that ended with chaos and death.
(23:52):
Keith traded war stories with Argentina, war stories involving their
encounters with Phil Specter, war stories told in secret because
Phil Specter remained powerful, and Phil Specter remained a man
of prodigious jealousy and There were times when Keith learned
more than he wanted to know, times when he delve
deeper into the mind of Ike Turner, deeper than he
had thought possible. I talked in that mind just opened up.
(24:17):
Its recesses were dark, its desires were darker. Sometimes their
conversations went too far, like the time Ike pulled the
gun from his pocket and ordered Keith to show him
how to play an open tuning Show me that five
streak ship. Motherfucker. He's jaw dropped when he watched I
(24:39):
take the same gun and pissed the whip one of
his band members. And the more Keith listen to I talk,
he realized that the guitarists, the producer, the man who
maybe invented rock and roll, had a lot more in
common with Phil Specter than he thought, and he now
cut from the same sort of stock that could only
lead to blood on the Tracks. This episode of Blood
(25:13):
on the Tracks is brought to you by twenty seven Club,
a podcast that I host on musicians who've died at
the age of seven. Season two, featuring Jim Morrison, is
now available, as is season one, with twelve episodes featuring
Jimmy Hendrix, subscribe to the twenty seven Club on Apple podcast,
I Heeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts,
and of course, this episode was also brought to you
(25:34):
by Disgrace Land, the award winning music and true crime
podcast also hosted by Yours Truly. Episodes on The Rolling Stones,
Jerry Lewis, Cardi b, The Grateful Dead, j Z Prince
and many many more are all waiting for you right now.
Just search Disgrace Land on Apple podcast, I Heeart Radio
app or wherever you get your podcast all right. This
(25:55):
episode of Blood on the Tracks was written by Zeth
Lundi and scored in mixed by Matt Bo hosted by
me Jake Brennan. Additional music and score elements by Ryan's
Breaker and Henry Lunetta. Blood on the Tracks is produced
by myself for Double Elvis and partnership with I Heart Radio.
Sources for this episode are available at Double Elvis dot
com on the Blood on the Tracks series page. But
(26:17):
if you like what you hear, please be sure to
subscribe the Blood on the Tracks on Apple podcast, I
Heart Radio app, wherever you get your podcasts, and if
you'd like to win a free Blood on the Tracks
poster designed by Nate Gonzalez, and leave a review for
Blood on the Tracks on Apple Podcast. You can hashtag
Blood on the Tracks on social media. Leave your review there.
We'll pick two winners each week and announce them on
(26:38):
the Double Elvis Instagram page. That's at Double Elvis. Go
ahead and give that a follow, all right. As always,
you can find me blabbing about other crazy rock stars
on disgrace Land and twenty seven Club, and you can
talk to me per usual on Instagram and Twitter at
disgrace Land lock Aba that Gravey over Dann
Blood on the Tracks is the production of I Heart
Radio and Double Elvis. Phil Spector was a musical genius,
one of the most successful record producers of all time.
He's now sitting behind bars, serving a nineteen years to
life sentence for murder. This is his story told by
his so called friends. This is Special Agent Paul Ramon
(00:31):
with the Federal Bureau of Investigation work in case number
double oh four dash ten dash seven four one nine
case subject of Specter Philip Harvey. This information for ten
to the period ending September interview subject to Richards Keith
interviewed number zero dash one one dash five one nine
dash six four zero recall number four data's March thousand
(00:54):
and six. I fell in love with Ronnie Bennett, and
Ronnie Bennett fell in love with me, but we had
to keep it under wraps because their old man, Phil
Spector was a man of prodigious jealousy. She had to
(01:15):
be in her room all the time after the gigs.
In case Phil called still Ronnie and I got after him.
Mick Cotton to her sister, who wasn't so tightly chaperoned.
The Rownetts would be my baby days. Phil was on
top of the world. So was Ronnie. Mick and I
were just getting our first bite in the world, and
ye had to bite back. Ronnie told me later how
(01:37):
insecure Phil was, of his height, was receiving hairline, How
jealousy wasn't of my terrible things, How jealousy was of
most people who had anything he didn't have or could
take away. And I think he did have that insecurity,
was so chronicked that he would go to terrible lengths
to allay his fears. Well, you know, terrible lengths are
(01:58):
the exact sorts of things that brief blood Hucks Chapter three,
(02:28):
Phil Spector and Keith Richards. We were told that we
couldn't talk to the girls. We couldn't even look at them,
(02:48):
you know, shoot a little glance in their direction. Hey there, baby,
how are you doing. We were polite boys, you know,
but we fancied a little fun every now and then.
It's like an edict outlying fun before the fun even started,
and the girls became like forbidden fruit for us. For
me in particular, it was all about Ronnie. I took
(03:09):
one look at her, heard one note from her angelic voice,
you know, and it was it was over. I knew
I was gonna break somebody's role. I was gonna look
at her. I was going to talk to her. You know.
I was a polite boy, mind, but I wasn't that polite.
Phil issued the no fun edict. You know. He was
a man of prodigious jealousy. He telegraphed Andrew and Andrew
log Goldham. You know, Andrew was our manager and our
(03:30):
producer at the time, and this was the nine four
or something. Andrew got the boot from Brian Epstein, you know,
and he helped put the beals together, got them in
their suits after the rough and tumble Hamburg days and all.
He was just a hustler back then, still a kid. Anyway,
Andrew got into some punch up with Brian, and Brian
cut him loose. Andrew didn't give a ship. It only
(03:54):
made him stronger. He made us out of that punch up.
He made the rolling stones. And this is what I
was calling myself. Keith Richard dropped the s. It was
all calculation and that was Andrew's bag. Andrew fancied himself
the London version of Phil Specter. He dressed like a dandy,
wore sunglasses inside, carried the attitude of a scorn genius,
(04:15):
like a big chip on his shoulder. You know, he
thought rock and roll could be art. We weren't long
for the tailored suits. We were polite boys. Again. Yeah,
I know, I keep saying that we were polite, but
we weren't that polite. We didn't want to be the Beetles.
We wanted to be whatever. The opposite of Beetles was
the black hat. All that I got an off track.
(04:41):
I was talking about Andrew and Phil, So wait, I
gotta back up a little more. And the Ronettes came
over to England for a bit of a tour, and
Be My Baby was still a big hit. So the
Ronettes come to England and Phil taps us to open
the shows the actually and before they even get there,
before the plane from New York even touches down, and
(05:02):
he throw, Phil sends his telegram to Andrew. All it
says is keep the stones away from my girls, his girls.
You know that should tell you a lot right there,
teach like he owned them or something. He certainly thought
he did. I'm sure what he meant by that telegram
was more like, keep the stones away from Ronnie. He
(05:23):
could give two ships about a spell and Nedrew, they
arrived in London before Phil, and that's why he sent
the warning. Phil came a little later. Wanted to make
sure you didn't have to worry until they got there,
you know. And so Andrew was very conserved, very aware
of this demand the Phils, and because he thinks so
highly of Phil, wants to impress Phil. Wants Phil to
think he's cool. The girls arrived from the States, and
(05:46):
Andrew keeps coming around to me and Mick, Hello, boys,
are you behaving yourself? And all that. But from the
moment I saw Ronnie, and you hope that's for all?
Phil who right? And she was a sight to behold,
and her voice, her voice was just this is magic.
(06:06):
And I got the same feeling all over my body,
whether I was looking at her or listening to her
singer she walked in a room, or just standing there
next to me. Phil around in London and to put
on the act just for Andrew's sake, you know, make
sure we could keep the gig. But I was doing
all I could to talk to Ronnie with my eyes
all behind Phil's back. Mind you, as a shy boy,
(06:29):
I really was, and Ronnie was a shy thing yourself.
I shot her a glance if you chance, I got
she She received them pretty soon. She was shooting them back.
Phil was like a stern headmaster that you have been
warned not to cross, you know, heads down, lads, pencils up,
quit snickering, headmasters coming. You could feel the pressure of
(06:51):
his gaze, the weight of his presence. As soon as
he was off the plane and backstage at the venues
we're playing this is our second UK tour. I think
he quickly got a with me and Ronnie looking at
each other the way we were, and he decided that
we wouldn't see a soul and she stepped off the
stage that night. I mean, you know, talk to Ronnie.
She'll tell you the stories right there when I told
(07:15):
you it was like an omen of things that were
to come between those two, the lengths to which he
would go to keep people away from her. He heard
a lot about Phil Spector, and we probably heard more
than most, what with Andrew's obsession with him, and all
heard all about his genius, about the way which he
was turning pop music on it's ear. But to us,
(07:38):
to me, he was an obstacle, a barrier. I had
to find my way around over under to the side.
You learned these things, you know, you learn how to
skate in unnoticed, how to work under the radar. I mean,
you don't get into the kind of the trouble that
the Stones got into without knowing how to play the system,
if you know what I'm talking about. I knew that
(07:59):
Ronnie would be my I just needed to figure out
how to play Phil. So speak of playing Phil. We
(08:38):
played a lot with Phil quite a bit in the studio.
You know, my interactions with him weren't just limited to
dodging his jealous case and inciting his jealous rage. When
I think of Phil, I think of Ronnie. Well, I
think Ronnie often, so those memories are right there, man,
right up front, vivid. But I forget the Phil was
there with us more often than you think. He was
(08:59):
in our four prmative years, and he wasn't producing us.
You know, Andrew was producing us, and Phil was there
at Andrew's behast. Phil was oddly unfilled in those moments.
He wasn't trying to control anything. He wasn't trying to
put his walls sound stamp on us anything like that. Now,
he was one of the boys, Fly on the wall,
(09:20):
Fly on the wall, who was given a bass to
player some moraccos to shake. That's filling based on playing
with Fire. Well, it was D two guitar, you know,
a guitar made to sound like a bass. That was
in l A sixty five. I think our Cia studios.
I played acoustic guitar and Mick played tambourine, and then
(09:40):
Jack MEETSI was on harpsichord. Jack MEETSI. You want to
talk about a true genius, Let's talk about Jack for
a minute. The true genius in Phil Spector's studio. Phil
just live vicariously through Jack. You know, his arrangements, his field,
his look, his whole, you know, his his jackanus. Jack
had it boy and Phil wanted it. But I'll come
back to Jack. I'll come back to Jack later. Now, Phil,
(10:03):
Phil was a phils, a great player, very understated, very
very few people know this. They think he just stood
there with his dark sunglasses on and his arms folded,
you know, lording over the studio like some grenade that
could go off at any time. Not that that wasn't true,
you know, but he was a very simple, very tasteful player.
That's him on playing with Fire at base Park. Don't
(10:24):
don't don't don't do That's Phil, that's Phil specter man.
He was really into the Stones. If you had known
how much I wanted to sneak off into the dark
at the end of the street with Ronnie. You know.
He may not liked us so much, but he liked us,
He really did. He really liked us. The music here everywhere,
everyone here in the flesh, Keith Richard and Brian Jones
(10:47):
and the drumlie Wants. When he was in the UK
with the ron Nats on that tour, you know, he
took a meeting with the head of Deck of Records,
Sir Edward lewis a proper English chap, you know, Sir Edward.
He took Andrew with him as a bot for he
wanted to release the Stones music on his Phillies label
in America. So he goes into the stuff you owe
an English office, the walls full of all that antiquity,
(11:08):
you know, and it makes his ass, makes his pitch,
you know, really a begging session more than anything, Sir
Edward Stonewall felt, even with Andrew standing there fills honorary
brit to butter him up. What's this? You know? An
American pilfering our lives. I won't stand for it. England
won't stand for it. That sort of thing, all very
very proper, no emotion, very British. It was like David
asking Goliath for a favor. If David thought that he
(11:30):
was Goliath, right, Phil was fucking wild man, That's how
he was. He was like that. So Phil and Andrew
left that meeting with nothing, nothing from Sir Edward, and
they were just, you know, in a state piste. Phil's
angry at the stuff you old fired with the balls
to say no to him. You know, he said no
to the Phil spectrum man said no right to his face.
And Andrew is angry that he's made himself look like
(11:51):
a fool in front of his hero. And neither of
them are happy, the two of them. They came from
that turtive meeting with Sirrett, went straight into the studio
with us or we were recording that fade Away we.
Phil took out some of his frustration on the pair
of moracas, those moracas here in the song those to him.
(12:13):
He was able to take his mind off things for
a few moments, and Mick dragged him into the other
room to write to the b side a little by little,
but you could tell that the meeting was just bristling
under his skin. He had been rebuffed and he was
told no, when he was used to being in control,
you know, to having the last say. He told people
how to sing and how to play, when to sing it,
(12:34):
when to play. So I know it's stungle. We had
drank as much as the drink in the studio that
we could that night, and the atmosphere got loose. Called
it real gone back then when we get to that place,
you know, real gone. Brother Phil wasn't taking part of
the drink, but he was more than ready to let loose.
He's a little man pent up with all sorts of
(12:55):
big time anchor, ready to unleash, get revenge, that type
of thing. We started riffing on this blue shuffle, very
up tempo. Do doom doom DoD DoD doo doo kink,
that sort of thing. You know, a boy from New
York City. Phil starts ad living on the track, starts
singing about Andrew and how he focks all night. It
(13:15):
sucks all night, you know. He sings taste that pussy
in taste just right, and the band is just rollicking
along right, the well oiled locomotive. You know, we're there.
We're there every even with the pints, even with the booze,
you know, and Mix starts his calm response with Phil,
we had it, man, it was firing. It goes yes, Andrew,
and Phil responds, suck it, Andrew, and Mix shots go
on Andrew and Phil responds, fucking Andrew. And then Phil
(13:37):
takes it to the next level, you know. He sings
something like, come and get it, little Andrew, before Sir
Edward comes and takes it away. Phil starts doing this
impression of blubbering Sir Edward, just this atrocious English accent,
almost incomprehensible, you know, and he's going on about himself
and the Rolling Stones. The Rolling Stones are a great
fucking group. What a low balls. And you know what, man,
(13:59):
Phil would pulled the same ship if Sir Edward himself
had been sitting right there in front of him. It
wasn't drunk, it wasn't high, but he didn't give a damn.
You know, the man did not care. And if you
found yourself on his bad side because well, you know,
you said no to his request to bring the Rolling
Stones to America or you may come funck me eyes
(14:20):
at his girls. Well, ship man, you better watch your back.
We'll be right back after this word, word word. I
(14:47):
found myself in Ronnie's room one day on that UK
to her Strand Palace hotel, and she was packing the
head off to the next stop. I don't even remember
how I did it. You know, I got into her room.
It was a bit of magic, you know, a slight
in the hand, and Phil looked away, and Phil walked away.
Something Phil made like a tree, and I made my move.
I was only twenty, you know, my turtle, next shirt,
all the way up to my chin, my hair down
(15:09):
over my ears. Ronnie was twenty, also a couple of kids.
Every move she made shot electricity through my bones. The
way she smelled, the way she smiled, the way she
packed her shirt and a suitcase on the bed, and
the hotel them. I loved her. You know, listen, man,
a gentleman never tells you know what I mean. But
(15:30):
I will say we got around to do more than
just looking at each other. When we find ourselves alone
without the watchful eye Phil Specter bearing down on us.
I was a bit afraid of his wrath. Was jealousy,
afraid of what he could do to me, to my career,
you know, if he found out, because he was a
(15:53):
music industry into himself at that time. You know what
I mean. I guess the part of me that didn't
give a funk beat out the part of me that
was concerned. You know, we went to anti beetles for nothing.
We did the opposite of what was expected. The world
wanted smooth and we were shop The world wanted clean
and we were dirty. Phil Specter expected that the world
(16:14):
would obey his orders and leave Ronnie alone. But I'm
not the world, am I not? And it wasn't just
his girl that he was all prickly about, right, Phil
wanted my hair too. Man. It was probably more conscious
of the fact that my hair was better than me is,
and the fact that I wanted to get close in
personal with a singer with his girlfriend. The man was
wearing rugs at that point, even back then, not fooling anyone.
(16:37):
You know, he got off the planet heath throw his hands,
shot right to the top of his head and all
that wind. No wonder he had such control issues, you
know what I mean? Ronnie told me later, Caroline jealous wasn't.
Later that year, the Stones finally get across the Pond
for a first tour of America. Who do we call Ronnie?
(16:59):
Of course I made sure I found a number for her.
The philm wasn't watching. It was her mother's number. I think.
We went up to Spanish Charlem the places Ronnie had
told me about, places I had read about making. I
crashed on her mother's living room floor. She made us
bacon and eggs in the morning. We were on our
best behavior. Of course, I was defaulted to my better
(17:22):
behavior around Ronnie. We piled into a red Cadillac with
the girls and went to Jones Beach out on Long Island, America. Man,
it ripped through my hair. America did I've been listening
to American music for so long that I felt like
a new the place already. But it was different being there.
America wasn't all like New York. We weren't received with
(17:42):
open arms just anywhere compact. Brian and me nearly pissing
ourselves in Omaha. Well, we were pissing in the men's
room with the auditorium, holding paper cups of hooch when
he drew his piece on us and told us we
couldn't be drinking in a public building. That's when I
bought my first out on that tour at a truck stop.
(18:02):
Back in those days, the cops were always coming for
musicians on this charge or that. You had to be ready,
ready to defend yourself and ship. You know, I never
knew if I was about to turn a corner with
Ronnie's hand in mine and come face to face with Phil.
Can you imagine? Because I did. I imagined it all
the time with the scenarios play through my head. Phil
Specter so jealous. He had people, he had bodyguards and
(18:29):
aaron men, and yes, man, he had deep pockets. He
had some guy on stage standing right there, so when
the ronnets were done and they began their exit, this
guy could swoop in and take Ronnie by the arm
and keep her away from any and all swinging dicks
in the general vicinity. Phil had power, felt that he
felt it when he was around, and you felt it
(18:50):
when he wasn't around. And I didn't have power, men.
All I have was a bit of a chip on
my shoulder back then, a heart that was bursting for
Ronnie Bennett, and you know, fuck you attitude toward authority.
I've always had that. And you know why, I Phil
Specter at power, right, because he's so damn and secure. Man.
(19:12):
I didn't see Phil at all in New York, but
I felt Ronnie took me amidst C. James Brown at
the Apollo, and I spent a little too much time
with the Phil's face in the audience. I think it
was an absent presence that a lot of people felt
possibility to feel, you know, what could be. So maybe
it wasn't meant to be with me and Ronnie. Maybe
I should have stuck my neck out a little more,
(19:34):
worried about things a little less. And there was also
the entire body of the Atlantic Ocean between us most
times too, that made things impossible. It's the kind of
regret that men write books about, right, And so Ronnie
got a little too close to Phil, believed him a
(19:54):
little too much, believed in him a little too much.
I thought he would continue to champion her as an artist.
You know, she let herself feel love, though I don't
know if love was really what she was feeling. Last
time I ever saw feel spect I just felt a
deep longing for what could have been, what could have
been for me sure, but what could have been for
(20:15):
Ronnie too, that maybe we all would have just been
better off if I had swept a run off her feet,
told Phil Specter that she didn't belong to anybody. September nine, London,
(20:59):
I Can Tina Turn her album River Deep Mountain Highs,
released by London Records in the UK. The album was
scheduled for releasing the States on Philly's Phil Specter's label,
but it was pulled at the last minute when the
title track, also produced by Specter, bombed. Phili Specter's latest
Wagnerian pop Opus took Tina out of her comfort zone
(21:19):
and took Ike out of the picture completely. In the US,
it was a thunderous dud that could be heard from
coast to coast, and it wasn't just because the thing
was drenched in an echo chamber. Across the pond, though
it was a different story. The single River Deep Mountain
high peaked at number three on the UK charts. London
(21:41):
loved it, and so the full length LP with the
same name was soon released by the very man who
had turned down Phil Specter's offer to bring The Rolling
Stones to America just a few years prior, London Records,
an offshoot of the Mighty Decca Records, released Phil Specter's
new single by Kent Tina. Sir Edward Lewis succumbed to
Phil's eight after all. Keith Richards picked up his copy
(22:04):
of the album after being blown away by the single.
Listening to Tina's hurricane vocal, he was struck by the
same feeling he had when he first heard Ronnie Bennett,
who would go on to become Ronnie Specter. He held
the LP jacket his hands, noting the dreamlike images of
Icanina and full Power couple pose on the front. He
(22:24):
turned it over and there on the back cover, standing
in between Varcanina with his hands greedily grasping for control
bobs in the studio was the man who had stood
between him, Keith and a girl. He deeply loved. Ronnie
Specter's face there on the LP made the bad memories
bubble up, the memory Stunned, they curled at the top,
(22:46):
the thoughts of what was or what would never be.
But Keith Richards, with an ass didn't live in the past.
Keith Richards barreled forward. He could barrow forward without Phil
Specter just fine. He didn't need the bad memories. He
did need Kentina, Turner, England love them, Keith love them,
Nick loved them. The Stones wanted them on their stage,
(23:08):
maybe more than Phil Specter wanted them in the studio.
The Stones reached out and found Argentina irritated and stuck
following their ill fated pairing with the fame Phil Specter,
and they needed a change. They needed a direction, They
needed an audience. Keith making the rest of the Boys
could offer them all three. The Stones invited them to
(23:29):
travel Abron filled the opening slot on their UK tour.
You get the audience they deserved, bask and the applause,
escape from under Phil Specter's thomb, and they answered the call,
opened the tour, and then in nineteen sixty nine they
opened for the Stones again in America and the tour
that included the infamous show it out to Mount Speedway
in California, the one that ended with chaos and death.
(23:52):
Keith traded war stories with Argentina, war stories involving their
encounters with Phil Specter, war stories told in secret because
Phil Specter remained powerful, and Phil Specter remained a man
of prodigious jealousy and There were times when Keith learned
more than he wanted to know, times when he delve
deeper into the mind of Ike Turner, deeper than he
had thought possible. I talked in that mind just opened up.
(24:17):
Its recesses were dark, its desires were darker. Sometimes their
conversations went too far, like the time Ike pulled the
gun from his pocket and ordered Keith to show him
how to play an open tuning Show me that five
streak ship. Motherfucker. He's jaw dropped when he watched I
(24:39):
take the same gun and pissed the whip one of
his band members. And the more Keith listen to I talk,
he realized that the guitarists, the producer, the man who
maybe invented rock and roll, had a lot more in
common with Phil Specter than he thought, and he now
cut from the same sort of stock that could only
lead to blood on the Tracks. This episode of Blood
(25:13):
on the Tracks is brought to you by twenty seven Club,
a podcast that I host on musicians who've died at
the age of seven. Season two, featuring Jim Morrison, is
now available, as is season one, with twelve episodes featuring
Jimmy Hendrix, subscribe to the twenty seven Club on Apple podcast,
I Heeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts,
and of course, this episode was also brought to you
(25:34):
by Disgrace Land, the award winning music and true crime
podcast also hosted by Yours Truly. Episodes on The Rolling Stones,
Jerry Lewis, Cardi b, The Grateful Dead, j Z Prince
and many many more are all waiting for you right now.
Just search Disgrace Land on Apple podcast, I Heeart Radio
app or wherever you get your podcast all right. This
(25:55):
episode of Blood on the Tracks was written by Zeth
Lundi and scored in mixed by Matt Bo hosted by
me Jake Brennan. Additional music and score elements by Ryan's
Breaker and Henry Lunetta. Blood on the Tracks is produced
by myself for Double Elvis and partnership with I Heart Radio.
Sources for this episode are available at Double Elvis dot
com on the Blood on the Tracks series page. But
(26:17):
if you like what you hear, please be sure to
subscribe the Blood on the Tracks on Apple podcast, I
Heart Radio app, wherever you get your podcasts, and if
you'd like to win a free Blood on the Tracks
poster designed by Nate Gonzalez, and leave a review for
Blood on the Tracks on Apple Podcast. You can hashtag
Blood on the Tracks on social media. Leave your review there.
We'll pick two winners each week and announce them on
(26:38):
the Double Elvis Instagram page. That's at Double Elvis. Go
ahead and give that a follow, all right. As always,
you can find me blabbing about other crazy rock stars
on disgrace Land and twenty seven Club, and you can
talk to me per usual on Instagram and Twitter at
disgrace Land lock Aba that Gravey over Dann
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.