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Phil Spector, a music producer of monumental influence whose “Wall of Sound” style revolutionized the way rock music was recorded in the early 1960s, died on Saturday at the age of 81.
Spector’s life was tumultuous and ultimately tragic; As groundbreaking as her studio accomplishments were, those accomplishments were almost overshadowed by her 2009 conviction for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson.
Spector’s death has been confirmed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, “California Health Center inmate Phillip Spector was pronounced dead of natural causes at 6:35 p.m. on Saturday, January 16, 2021 at an outside hospital. His official cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner in the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office.
Spector took what he called “a Wagnerian approach to rock & roll”, calling the hit records he assembled in the 1960s by artists like the Ronettes, Crystals, Darlene Love and the Righteous Brothers as “Little symphonies for children”. His productions were dense and orchestral, accumulating layer after layer of guitars, horns, keyboards, strings and percussion, often with several instruments playing the same note in unison. The songs he selected were incredibly romantic, typically written by the Brill Building’s greatest songwriters, and his classic recordings were based on the brilliant contributions of a group of musicians dubbed the Wrecking Crew – the four-stroke intro. from drummer Hal Blaine to Ronettes. Be My Baby ”is one of the most memorable kicks off a song in rock & roll history.
Spector’s classic recordings drove his contemporaries to become more ambitious in the studio. “He’s timeless,” Brian Wilson said of Spector in 1966. “He takes a big step forward every time he comes into the studio and that has helped the Beach Boys evolve. A decade later, Bruce Springsteen would seek to recapture the grandeur of Spector’s productions on Born to run. “Phil’s records felt like near chaos, violence covered in sugar and candy… little three-minute orgasms followed by forgetfulness,” Springsteen said in 2012. “And Phil’s biggest lesson was solid. . 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 a few years later performed in jazz groups.
Spector formed the Teddy Bears in 1958 with high school friends Marshall Lieb and Annette Kleinbard. Spector took the title from his first production, “To know him is to love him”, after the inscription on his father’s tombstone. It was a number one hit, but the band’s subsequent singles, as well as their only album, Teddy bears are singing!, collapsed and the group quickly disbanded.
When he was 18, Spector came to the attention of veteran LA producer Lester Sill, who asked Spector to go to New York and work with former Sill proteges, successful songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Spector co-wrote Ben E. King’s hit “Spanish Harlem” with Lieber and played guitar on the Drifters’ “On Broadway”. But it was as a producer that Spector would make 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.
At the end of 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 exploded as he focused his attention on the girl group called the Crystals, which had hits with “There No Other ( Like My Baby) ”and“ Uptown. ”After a third single, the controversial“ He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss) ”fell apart, Spector fired the original Crystals, replacing them with singer Darlene Love, his support group, the Blossoms. (Such summarily dictatorial decisions would be a hallmark of Spector’s career.) The personnel change worked: Crystals’ first single, the million-selling “He a Rebel”, became the Philles’ first number one single. Just a year after forming the label, Spector bought out Lester Sill. At 21, Phil Spector was a millionaire.
Spector began recording on the West Coast at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles, where he further expanded his Wall of Sound brand with help from the Wrecking Crew, which included unprecedented session men like guitarists Glen Campbell. and Barney Kessel, pianist Leon Russell and drummer Hal. Blaine – with Jack Nitzsche and Sonny Bono often arranging and supervising the recordings. Spector created four Top 10 hits in 1963: the Crystals “Da Doo Ron Ron” and “Then He Kissed Me”, Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” and, the biggest All of it, Ronettes’ “Be My Baby”, featuring the streetwise and seductive grater of young singer Veronica “Ronnie” Bennett.
Although Spector focused on creating 45 rpm singles, at the end of 1963 he released his only classic LP. A Christmas present for you from Philles Records, which featured all the artists on the label, and largely consisted of well-known Christmas carols, such as the Ronettes’ ‘Santa Claus Is Coming to Town’, ecstatically reworked. The standout 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 standard in its own right.
Spector had become rock & roll’s first superstar producer – “the first teen mogul” as a profile of Tom Wolfe called him. Spector stood firm against the British invasion of 1964, producing even more success for the Ronettes, and the following year he turned to a male duo called the Righteous Brothers. The band “You’ve Lost That Lovin ‘Feeling” sold over two million copies and became Philles’ third number one hit.
But Spector’s productions were getting longer and longer and more ambitious – some even said inflated. In 1966, the baroque pop epic he considered his masterpiece, “River Deep – Mountain High” by Ike & Tina Turner, stalled at number 88 in the United States (although it reached the UK Number Three) A resentful Spector has isolated himself in his Hollywood mansion for two years, only emerging to appear briefly as a drug dealer in the classic counter-culture film Easy Rider. In 1968 he married Ronnie Bennett; in his memories of 1990, Be my baby: how I survived mascara, miniskirts and madness, or my life as a fabulous Ronette, she portrayed Spector as an abusive husband prone to eccentric if not downright insane behavior.
Spector returned to the music business in 1969. A new Ronettes single, “You Came, You Saw, You Conquered,” fell apart, but that same year he also released Sonny Charles and the Checkmates “Black. Pearl, ”a number 13 hit. Now safely in the production saddle, Spector has teamed up with The Beatles. He produced John Lennon’s solo hit “Instant Karma!” and was given the task of creating an album from the band’s abandonment Come back sessions. The result was the Beatles’ last studio album, Never mind.
Some of Spector’s critics, including Paul McCartney, weren’t impressed with his heavy handling of channels like “The Long and Winding Road.” But the members of McCartney’s group were more satisfied with Spector’s work. George Harrison not only asked Spector to produce his triple album, Everything must pass, but Lennon brought him to co-produce The Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, albums that sounded unusually available to Spector. Fittingly, Lennon also asked 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 car crash in Hollywood. He was thrown through a car windshield and was almost pronounced dead at the scene; it took hours of surgery to keep him alive – as well as over 700 stitches in his head to his face and over 400 in the back of his head.
Prior to his car accident, Spector had formed a new label, Warner-Spector, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers, for which he recorded Cher, Harry Nilsson, Darlene Love, and a young singer named Jerri Bo Keno, which he hoped to do. a star. After a falling out with Warners, he formed Phil Spector International, re-issuing the album of his classic 60s recordings, which had long been out of print. The label’s most anticipated new release was supposed to be a comeback for Spector and Dion DiMucci, but Born to be with you failed both critically and commercially.
Spector’s next two albums were aimed at cult artists looking for a more complete production sound, and both albums aroused skepticism from fans of the artists. In 1977, Spector produced Leonard Cohen’s Death of a ladies’ man, a marked contrast to the darker acoustic affairs of the singer-songwriter. In 1980, after four classic let-it-rip albums, the Ramones got him to give him a makeover. End of the century. Legend has it that Spector carried a weapon during Ramones sessions and even threatened members of the group.
By the time he entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, Spector had effectively retired from the music industry for nearly a decade. (He was inducted by Ike and Tina Turner; Spector hadn’t told either that the other was also invited.) In 1995, he agreed to produce a Celine Dion album, but then withdrew. of the project, citing his aversion to the Canadian. the direction of the singer.
Spector spent much of the next decade in court. He successfully fought to retain UK copyright to the music and lyrics of “To Know Him Is to Love Him” in 1997. Three years later, however, a US court ordered him to pay 2 , $ 6 million to Ronnie Spector and the Ronettes, mostly in royalty return. He had grown into a dark figure by this time. “People tell me they idolize me, want to be like me, but I tell them, ‘Trust me, you don’t want my life,’” he said. “I have been a very tortured soul.” But the blockbuster’s most groundbreaking legal battle was yet to come.
In 2003, police were called to Spector’s mansion in Alhambra, California, where actress Lana Clarkson was shot. Spector was arrested and charged with second degree murder. The producer had kept away from the public for years, and now, in a televised trial, he presented a startling image with his huge nimbus of unkempt, curly hair. The jury was deadlocked and Spector faced a second murder trial, which resulted in a conviction. In 2009, Spector was sentenced to 19 years in life.
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