Known for his work as a musician, producer and actor, Steven Van Zandt has enjoyed an incredibly impressive career so far. After meeting Bruce Springsteen in the late 1960s, the pair struck up a friendship that would lead them to collaborate, with Van Zandt joining the E Street Band in 1975.
Since then, Van Zandt has toured across the world with Springsteen, writing songs for other artists in the process. He has also released five albums as a solo artist, beginning with 1982’s Men Without Women.
Van Zandt has starred in multiple shows and movies, such as The Sopranos and Lilyhammer, co-writing the latter series. He also featured in Martin Scorsese’sThe Irishman in 2019. Interestingly, it was Scorsese’s movie Mean Streets that made Van Zandt become obsessed with The Ronettes, more specifically, Ronnie Spector.
Opening with the sounds of the band’s hit song ‘Be My Baby’, Van Zandt told Variety, “It was Mean Streets that finally drove it home.” Although he had been enamoured with the girl group when he was young, it wasn’t until the 1970s that he was able to work with her and form a long-lasting friendship and, for a brief period, a romantic relationship.
Upon her passing in 2022, the musician picked out five songs by Spector that he loved most for Billboard. He selected the track that first allowed the pair to work together – ‘You Mean So Much To Me’ – a song written by Springsteen for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and Spector, which Van Zandt produced. He explained: “She basically had quit at that point and had lost her confidence and really felt like she would never go back onstage. So that was a really important transitional record.”
Naturally, Van Zandt also picked two songs in which Spector performed with the E Street Band. His first choice was ‘Say Goodbye To Hollywood’, a cover of Billy Joel’s original. He revealed that the collaboration “was a very important moment for the E Street Band, who were in some trouble at that moment.” Thus, for both Springsteen’s band and Spector, the chance to work together provided them all with a well-needed boost.
His other choice was ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’, the B-side to the former track. He wrote it for Spector while they were dating, calling it “kind of personal.” Van Zandt added, “A little bit of an extra sort of excitement about her singing a song that I actually wrote. It’s an extra motivation and inspiration.”
Van Zandt selected two tracks by The Ronnettes, starting with ‘I Wonder’ from their album Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes. Although Phil Spector wrote the song for The Crystals in 1964, The Ronettes performed it a few months later. “They’re just phenomenal, fantastic compositions, productions and arrangements,” Van Zandt gushed. Complimenting Spector’s voice, he added, “She had that particular vibrato that was kind of uniquely hers. You can hear how many people were influenced by it.”
Finally, he discussed his love for ‘(The Best Part Of) Breaking Up’, which also appeared on Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes. Van Zandt said, “She just does what every great singer does, which is you are making the audience believe that you have written that song, you have lived that song, that song is completely autobiographical, straight from your soul to the vinyl.”
Steven Van Zandt’s favourite Ronnie Spector songs:
- ‘You Mean So Much To Me’ – Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and Ronnie Spector
- ‘Say Goodbye To Hollywood’ – Ronnie Spector and the E Street Band
- ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’ – Ronnie Spector and the E Street Band
- ‘I Wonder’ – The Ronettes
- ‘(The Best Part Of) Breaking Up’ – The Ronettes
