"He came to the Brooklyn Fox and saw our performance, and came backstage,"Nedra says. Under producer Stu Phillips at Colpix and its May logo, The Ronettes made more solid girl group 45s. "Murray was like, 'Oh, well, you're my dancing girls!'"says Nedra. Their dance moves rather than their voices earned them gigs on deejay Murray The K's gala concerts (they had yet to land a hit). Their ravishing look, incorporating heavy eye makeup, mountainous hairdos, and knockout physiques, got the underage Ronettes into the Peppermint Lounge in 1961. "That's how the name The Ronettes came up." ![]() ![]() So they had 'Ro'-Ronnie, 'Ne'–-Nedra, 'Es'–-Estelle,"says Nedra. "My mom and my uncle Ray and them came up with the combination of all of our names. That name lasted as long as their debut single. So it just sort of dwindled down to just being three." When they signed with Colpix in 1961, the trio was billed as Ronnie & The Relatives. ![]() At 10 years old, I was doing my first talent show at the Apollo with all of us. "It started out with six of us,"says Nedra. The girls and their relatives were tutored on harmonizing by Ronnie's grandmother. Ronnie loved Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers. Born Augin New York City, Veronica (her birth name), her sister Estelle (born July 22, 1941), and their cousin Nedra Talley (born January 27, 1946) were mixed race products of Spanish Harlem in New York. Phil Spector found his muse in Ronnie Bennett.
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