Phil Spector, a highly influential music producer whose “Wall of Sound” style revolutionized the way rock was recorded in the early 1960s, died on Saturday at the age of 81.
Spector’s life was tumultuous and, ultimately, tragic; however innovative his achievements in the studio may have been, these achievements were almost overshadowed by his conviction in 2009 for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson.
Spector’s death was confirmed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, “The California Health Center inmate, Phillip Spector, was pronounced dead of natural causes at 6:35 pm on Saturday, January 16, 2021, in an outside hospital. Your official cause of death will be determined by the coroner of the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office. “
Spector adopted what he became known as “a Wagnerian approach to rock & roll”, calling the hit records he collected in the 1960s for artists like Ronettes, The Crystals, Darlene Love and the Righteous Brothers “small symphonies for children” . His productions were dense and orchestral, accumulating layers and layers of guitars, metals, keyboards, strings and percussion, often with several instruments playing the same note in unison. The songs he selected were dizzyingly romantic, typically written by the greatest Brill Building composers, and his classic recordings featured the brilliant contributions of a group of musicians dubbed the Wrecking Crew – drummer Hal Blaine’s four-time introduction to the album “Be My Baby ”is one of the most distinctive releases for a song in the history of rock & roll.
Spector’s classic recordings spurred his contemporaries to become more ambitious in the studio. “He’s timeless,” said Brian Wilson of Spector in 1966. “He’s a milestone whenever he goes to the studio and that helped the Beach Boys evolve.” A decade later, Bruce Springsteen would seek to recapture the greatness of Spector’s productions in Born to run. “Phil’s records felt almost chaos, sugar-covered violence and candy … little three-minute orgasms, followed by oblivion,” said Springsteen in 2012. “And Phil’s biggest lesson was sound. Sound is its own language. “
Harvey Philip Spector was born in the Bronx on December 26, 1939. His father committed suicide when Spector was nine years old. Spector moved to Los Angeles with his mother in 1953 and, in a few years, was already playing in jazz groups.
Spector formed the Teddy Bears in 1958 with high school friends Marshall Lieb and Annette Kleinbard. Spector took the title of his first production, “To know him is to love him”, from the inscription on his father’s headstone. It was a number one hit, but the group’s subsequent singles, as well as their only album, Teddy bears sing!, failed and the group quickly dissolved.
When he was 18, Spector caught the eye of veteran LA producer Lester Sill, who instructed him to go to New York and work with Sill’s former protégés, successful composers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Spector co-wrote Ben E. King’s hit “Spanish Harlem” with Lieber and played guitar on Drifters’ “On Broadway”. But it was as a producer that Spector made his biggest impression, directing Ray Peterson’s hit version of “Corinna, Corinna”, “Every Breath I Take” by Gene Pitney and “Pretty Little Angel Eyes” by Curtis Lee.
In late 1961, Spector and Sill formed Philles Records. (The label’s name was a contraction of the owners’ first names.) Spector’s reputation as a producer grew when he focused his attention on the girl group called The Crystals, which had hits with “There is no other (like my baby)” and “Uptown.” After the third single, the controversial “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)” failed, Spector fired the original Crystals, replacing them with singer Darlene Love, her support group, The Blossoms. summarily dictatorial decisions would be a hallmark of Spector’s career.) The personnel change worked: the new single from the new Crystals, which sold a million copies “He’s a Rebel”, became Philles’ first number one single. Just a year after forming the label, Spector bought Lester Sill’s share, and at 21, Phil Spector was a millionaire.
Spector started recording on the West Coast at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles, where he expanded his trademark Wall of Sound even further with the help of the Wrecking Crew, which included incomparable session musicians like guitarists Glen Campbell and Barney Kessel, pianist Leon Russell and drummer Hal Blaine – with Jack Nitzsche and Sonny Bono frequently organizing and supervising recordings. Spector created four major hits in 1963: “Da Doo Ron Ron” by Crystals and “Then He Kissed Me”, “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” by Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans and the biggest of all, “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes, featuring the harsh and seductive voice of young singer Veronica “Ronnie” Bennett.
Although Spector’s focus was on producing 45 rpm singles, in late 1963 he released his only classic LP. A Christmas gift from Philles Records for you, which featured all of the label’s artists and largely consisted of well-known Christmas songs, like “Santa Claus is coming to town”, reworked in ecstasy by the Ronettes. The featured track, however, was a new song written by Spector, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich: “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by Darlene Love, which has become a holiday pattern in its own right.
Spector became the first superstar producer in rock & roll – “the first tycoon of his adolescence”, as a profile of Tom Wolfe famously dubbed him. Spector stood firm against the British invasion of 1964, producing even more hits for the Ronettes, and the following year, he turned his attention to a male duo called the Righteous Brothers. The group “You Lost That Lovin ‘Feeling” sold more than two million copies and became Philles’ third number one hit.
But Spector’s productions were increasingly time-consuming and ambitious – some even said they were bloated. In 1966, the baroque pop epic he considered his masterpiece, “River Deep – Mountain High”, by Ike & Tina Turner, tied at number 88 in the United States (although it reached number three in the United Kingdom). A resentful Spector isolated himself in Hollywood mansion for two years, emerging only to appear briefly as a drug dealer in the classic counterculture film Easy Rider. In 1968, he married Ronnie Bennett; in his 1990 memories, Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness, or My Life as Fabulous Ronette, she described Spector as an abusive husband, prone to eccentric, if not totally insane, behavior.
Spector returned to the music world in 1969. A new Ronettes single, “You Came, You Saw, You Conquered”, failed, but in the same year he also released Sonny Charles and the Checkmates “Black Pearl”, a number 13 hit Now safely back in the production saddle, Spector joined the Beatles. He produced John Lennon’s solo hit “Instant Karma!” and was tasked with creating an album from the abandoned group Return sessions. The result was the Beatles’ last studio album, Let it be.
Some of Spector’s critics, including Paul McCartney, were not impressed by his heavy handling of strings from tracks like “The Long and Winding Road”. But McCartney’s bandmates were happier with Spector’s work. George Harrison not only asked Spector to produce his triple album, All things must pass, but Lennon brought him to co-produce The Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, albums that had an exceptionally spare sound for Spector. Appropriately, Lennon also caused Spector, the creator of the greatest Christmas rock album of all time, to produce his single “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”.
In 1974, Spector barely survived a Hollywood car accident. He was thrown through the windshield of a car and almost pronounced dead at the scene of the accident; it took hours of surgery to keep him alive – plus more than 700 stitches on his head on his face and more than 400 on the back of his neck.
Before the car accident, Spector formed a new record label, Warner-Spector, a Warner Brothers subsidiary, for which he recorded Cher, Harry Nilsson, Darlene Love and a young singer named Jerri Bo Keno, whom he hoped to make a star. After a fight with Warners, he formed Phil Spector International, relaunching the album of his classic 1960s recordings, which had long been out of print. The label’s most anticipated new release was to be a comeback for Spector and Dion DiMucci, but Born to be with you failed critically and commercially.
Spector’s next two albums went to cult artists in search of a more complete production sound, and both albums were met with skepticism from the artists’ fans. In 1977, Spector produced Leonard Cohen’s Death of a womanizer, a striking contrast to the darker acoustic subjects of the singer and composer. In 1980, after four classic let-it-rip albums, the Ramones brought him to do a makeover in End of the century. Legend has it that Spector carried a gun during the Ramones’ sessions and even threatened band members.
When he entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, Spector had already retired from the music business for almost a decade. (He was nominated by Ike and Tina Turner; Spector did not tell either that the other had also been invited.) In 1995, he agreed to produce a Celine Dion album, but then gave up on the project, claiming he disliked the Canadian singer management.
Spector spent much of the next decade in court. He successfully fought to retain the UK copyright to the song and lyrics to “To Know Him Is to Love Him” in 1997. Three years later, however, a US court ordered him to pay Ronnie Spector and to Ronettes $ 2.6 million, mostly back royalties. He had become a dark figure at that time. “People tell me they worship me, they want to be like me, but I say to them, ‘Believe me, you don’t want my life,'” he said. “I have been a very tortured soul.” But the most transformative legal battle for the overproducer was yet to come.
In 2003, police were called to Spector’s mansion in Alhambra, California, where actress Lana Clarkson was shot dead. Spector was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. The producer has stayed out of the public eye for years, and now, during a televised trial, he has presented a surprising image with his huge, unkempt nimbus of curly hair. The jury reached an impasse and Spector was subjected to a second trial for murder, which resulted in a conviction. In 2009, Spector was sentenced to 19 years in prison.