Rolling Stone Magazine Ronnie Spector and Crystals singer La La Brooks were mere teenagers when they first met while performing in New York during Murray the K’s shows in the Sixties. Throughout the decades that followed they remained close, performing together as recently as 2015 at a private event in New Orleans. Rolling Stone spoke…
It was the sugary-voiced Dolores “LaLa” Brooks who sang lead on most of the classics, including the sublime “Then He Kissed Me,” recorded when she was just 16. If the Ronettes and Darlene Love are in the Hall of Fame, the Crystals surely deserve a spot as well.
The recent death of iconic music producer Phil Spector, who was convicted in 2009 for murdering actress Lana Clarkson, has left many to struggle with how to frame his legacy. For Dolores “LaLa” Brooks, who came to prominence as the lead singer of the Spector-produced 1960s girl group the Crystals, she remembered a gifted yet…
La La Brooks is interviewed in this special holiday episode of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums, our new podcast on Amazon Music, we delve into 1963’s A Christmas Gift for You From Phil Spector, an album that changed the way we look at holiday music. In 2019, Rolling Stone named it the best Christmas album of all time.
Like a fan excitedly showing off their record collection, the documentary “Streetlight Harmonies” flips through its history of doo-wop telling a tale both tuneful and essential in the development of rhythm & blues, rock and roll and civil rights. The parade of interviewed legends (La La Brooks, Little Anthony, Jeff Barry) and song snippets just might convince…
You may not know the name LaLa Brooks, but you know her voice. Dolores “LaLa” Brooks was only 15 years old when she sang lead vocal on a girl group classic – the Crystals’ “Da Doo Ron Ron,” a No. 3 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963. Brooks was not a charter member…
https://lalabrooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/LaLa_Brooks_091619.mp3 This week, Ira spoke with La La Brooks, original lead singer of the Crystals, who will be performing at The Suncoast Showroom, September 21. In this 30-minute episode of Talk About Las Vegas, Brooks talks about how Sam Cooke influenced the Crystals; what Phil Spector gave her; what is was like starting with the…
The Crystals singer Barbara Ann Alston, who recorded hits like Da Doo Ron Ron and Then He Kissed Me, has died at the age of 74. Her band, along with The Ronettes, were among the definitive girl groups of the 1960s and helped construct Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound. Alston sang lead vocals on their first three singles,…
