Ronnie Spector on Why She Loves Adele: 'She's Like Me'

Ronnie Spector doesn't like a lot of new artists, but she loves one in particular. "I see all of these artists – Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, I could go on and on – but I love Adele because she's like me," the onetime leader of the Ronettes tells Rolling Stone. "She doesn't have any dancers; she may have the background singing, but she's like Ruth Brown. She's heavyset; she doesn't care. Yet all of her shows were sold out at Madison Square Garden and the audience wasn't just teenyboppers. A lot of people don't want to see a circus. They don't want to see lip-syncing, they want to see real."

Spector, who recently put out the new LP English Heart, remembers that the first time she heard Adele, she exclaimed, "Now, that's good." For the "Be My Baby" singer, it's about the voice. "With the Ronettes, we never had an entourage [or] a makeup artist following us with blush," she says. "It's crazy now. We didn't even have an assistant. My mother would go on tour with us to help us with makeup. Today, it's like, give me a break with all these dancers and choreographers. Because you don't know what the singer is like. You have so many dancers, you're worried if they're going to fall. That's not rock & roll."

Spector says shows in the Sixties were simpler and she felt the audience appreciated begin able to see more of the artists. "Whether it was Marvin Gaye or the Temptations, you didn't have all of these other people," she says. "The Temptations would all be in a line and [Temptations singer] David [Ruffin] would step out front, and the girls would scream. That was great. They didn't have dancers behind them."

When Rolling Stone asks Spector which singers she likes other than Adele, she says, "Not many. You can't tell if it's their voice or if it's overdubbed," she says. "It's so weird today. That's why I wanted my album to be simple. I wanted it to be so they could hear my voice, hear my feelings."