Spector was, above all else, a murderer who had loads of abuse allegations levied against him. According to his ex-wife, Ronnie Spector, he kept a gold, glass-plated coffin in the basement and used it to intimidate her into staying with him. Dee Dee Ramone alleged that Spector pulled a gun on him during a recording session. Other artists who have accused him of holding them at gunpoint include John Lennon, Leonard Cohen and Debbie Harry.
Said Ronnie in her 1990 memoir
Be My Baby on her decision to leave her ex-husband in 1972: I knew that if I didn t leave I was going to die there.”
Phil Spector: Famed music producer, convicted murderer dead at 81
Jae C. Hong/AP
Music producer Phil Spector in Los Angeles County Superior Court in Los Angeles, Friday, May 29, 2009. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, Pool)
By: The Associated Press & Scripps National
Posted at 8:46 AM, Jan 17, 2021
and last updated 2021-01-17 12:04:12-05
LOS ANGELES â Phil Spector, the eccentric and revolutionary music producer who transformed rock music with his âWall of Soundâ method and who later was convicted of murder, has died. He was 81.
California state prison officials said he died Saturday of natural causes at a hospital.
Born in New York City in 1939, Specter rose to fame in the early 1960s by working with artists like Ronnie Crawford and the Top Notes. Throughout the decade, helped forever transform the sound of pop music through his innovative Wall of Sound method, which employed dozens of microphones to capture unique sounds.
Phil Spector, the eccentric and revolutionary music producer who transformed rock music with his “Wall of Sound” method and who later was convicted of murder, has died. He was 81.