PHIL SPECTOR
From Wall Of Sound to prison walls.
Record producer, musician, songwriter, Mr ‘Wall Of Sound’, Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee; eccentric, visionary, genius; oddball, convicted murderer. “A vicious little gun abuser with a Napoleon complex who has abused people for forty years,” according to his murdered victim’s best friend. But, his criminal side notwithstanding, if all Phil Spector had ever done was to co-write and produce The Ronettes’ Be My Baby and the Righteous Brothers’ You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’, two hits that helped soundtrack the 60s and define an era, his chapter in the history of 20th-century popular music would have been assured and deserved. But he did rather more than that.
Born Harvey Phillip Spector on December 26, 1939 in The Bronx, New York, his first taste of the music business was in 1958, as guitarist and vocalist with his group the Teddy Bears. Having written their US No.1 single To Know Him Is To Love Him, he was up and running along the road that across 50 years would lead him to glory, ‘legendary’ status, a Grammy, inclusion on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Greatest Artists Of All Time, and the inside of a prison cell.
Even when he’d barely started shaving he had established himself as a high-rolling mover and shaker, having formed his own label, Philles Records, and co-written and/or produced a string of 60s hits. By the mid-60s his ‘legendary’ status was sealed thanks largely to the Ronettes and Righteous Brother classics and another in Ike & Tina Turner’s earthshaking River Deep – Mountain High, on which he deployed his epic, bombastic ‘Wall Of Sound’ production. Described by Spector as the “Wagnerian approach to rock’n’roll”, the production involved throwing everything and the kitchen sink – strings, brass, percussion, stacked vocals, Grand Canyon-sized reverb, you name it – into the mix, delivering a huge, powerful torrent of sound that came out of the speakers like a sonic tsunami.
While Spector considered River Deep to be his greatest production to date, the record was also a hugely affecting disappointment for him (barely making the US Top 100), after which he effectively dropped off the radar for two years, during which time he married Veronica ‘Ronnie’ Bennett, lead singer of The Ronettes.
What better ego-boosting, confidence re-establishing way to emerge from the wilderness than to be asked to work on a record by a Beatle. And it was while working on John Lennon’s single Instant Karma that he was asked to work on what would become The Beatles’ Let It Be album, tasked with pulling something together from a lot of loose and unfinished material those sessions had produced; pulling success from the jaws of failure by the biggest band on the planet.
If not all the Beatles were happy with the result (McCartney was displeased with Spector’s orchestral and choir overdubs on what was initially intended to be a strippedback record, prompting him to instigate an alternative mix without them, released as Let It Be… Naked in 2003 ), Lennon and George Harrison seemed to be, with Spector subsequently co-producing Lennon’s Imagine and Plastic Ono Band albums and Harrison’s All Things Must Pass and Concert For Bangladesh.
By now keeping a low profile, in 1974 Spector was seriously injured in a car accident in which he was thrown through the windscreen and narrowly escaped death. It was reported that he required literally hundreds of stitches on his face and head.
Back behind the desk later that decade, he worked with, among others, Leonard Cohen and, perhaps surprisingly, the Ramones on their 1980 album End Of The Century.
Spector remained inactive for much of the next 30 years. When his name did hit the headlines again it was for a reason that would end his career: in 2009 he was found guilty of the murder of actress Lana Clarkson.
From Wall Of Sound to wrong side of prison walls, Phil Spector, a man who changed the sound and course of rock’n’roll, is currently serving a sentence of 19 years to life.
Paul Henderson