Phil Spector, who has died from Covid-19 aged 81, was a highly gifted record producer and songwriter whose recordings in the 1960s, and later with the Beatles, revolutionised pop music, but whose talents were undermined by a mercurial temperament that would lead to him twice standing trial for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson.
In his heyday in the early 1960s, Spector pioneered what became known as “The Wall of Sound”, producing some of the most exhilarating and uplifting recordings ever heard in pop music, including Be My Baby by the Ronettes and Da Do Ron Ron by the Crystals. In the 1970s he went on to work with the Beatles, producing John Lennon’s anthemic Imagine and George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord.