PowerPop: Ellie Greenwich 1940 - 2009

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Ellie Greenwich 1940 - 2009

Aw crap.

As a friend said a few moments ago --

Dear Grim Reaper:

TAKE A FUCKING VACATION ALREADY.

7 comments:

MBowen said...: I heard about it a couple of hours ago.

I have a very fond memory of singing "Chapel of Love" with my best man and groomsman just before getting hitched.

Thanks, Ellie. You were one of the greats.; 8/26/2009 7:49 PM
steve simels said...: She was indeed.; 8/26/2009 8:50 PM
Wendy said...: I wore my hair like that ...

"River Deep, Mountain High" blew me away the first time I heard it.; 8/26/2009 8:58 PM
dave™© said...: "River Deep, Mountain High" blew me away the first time I heard it.

Oddly enough, it wasn't until the advent of the internet that I really heard that number the way it should be heard. I found it posted somewhere in a low-res mono MP3 file and played it through my computer's single tinny speaker. Closest thing to a transistor radio circa 1966 around, and it was SO FUCKING HUGE. I imagined what it must have been like to be driving somewhere in the middle of the night with the car radio tuned to one of those mega-wattage AM stations that would bounce their signal off the ionosphere after dark and hear that tidal wave come at you. Whoever's in charge of Spector's music now should consider releasing it all in that low-res format...; 8/26/2009 9:24 PM
steve simels said...: Springsteen famously described Spector records (and it certainly applies to "River Deep") as "the sound of Universes colliding."

:-); 8/26/2009 9:56 PM
Noam Sane said...: I have a very fond memory of singing "Chapel of Love" with my best man and groomsman just before getting hitched.

We lived in SF when we decided to get married...we drove to Reno to do it, but everyplace seemed kind of tacky. How surprising.

So we found a "mansion" in Virginia City, Nevada that looked interesting. Sure enough, that song came on the oldies station as we drove there, through the desert. We certainly weren't in the age group that song was aimed at, and we weren't going to a chapel, and it was more funny than romantic, but it's something we've both pasted in our mental scrapbooks, for sure.

Anyway, Hanky Panky and Doo Wah Diddy Diddy. Awesome.

They'd better not use her funeral to further the liberal agenda, though.; 8/26/2009 11:06 PM
Alex said...: If Ellie Greenwich had done nothing else besides writing "(Christmas) Baby Please Come Home," her place in history would be assured.

Definitely one of the greats...; 8/27/2009 2:25 AM

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