Phil Spector Was a Killer
Convicted of murder, he was a troubled musical genius who transformed 1960s rock n roll and died of COVID-19. By John Sieger - Jan 20th, 2021 09:25 am //end headline wrapper ?>Get a daily rundown of the top stories on Urban Milwaukee
Phil Spector. Photo from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Photo from June 10th, 2009.
Phil Spector left the planet this week at age 81, another victim of COVID-19. He invented the 60’s as surely as
Bob Dylan or
The Beatles and did the country a special favor by keeping the flame of rock & roll lit in the early 60’s, a time when schlock, written by parents and aimed at teens, was seen as the antidote to the too wild (and probably too black) era that preceded it. His genius as a producer inspired an even more eccentric one,
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Pick a classic Phil Spector production. It actually doesn’t matter which. The opening eight bars of the Ronettes’ 1963 smash “Be My Baby” are among the catchiest in American song, a
thump, thump-thump, splash rhythm that rockets into outer space with sizzling shakers and snares that boom like shotguns. When Ronnie Spector’s soaring voice swoops in to steal the thunder, the combined eruption is undeniably thrilling.
Or take “Strange Love,” the Darlene Love-propelled gem that opens with a frolicking schoolyard melody before turning into a galloping riot of string- and percussion-driven weirdness as Love sings of a creeper whose brand of affection is so concerning that she “can’t take it, can’t take it no more.” The entirety of “A Christmas Gift to You,” Spector’s canonic holiday album, is a rush of joyous girl-group energy. “River Deep, Mountain High” my, oh my.
Phil Spector, famed music producer & murderer, dies
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Phil Spector, famed music producer & murderer, dies
New York Times / Jan 19, 2021, 07:51 IST
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NEW YORK: Phil Spector, one of the most influential and successful record producers in rock ’n’ roll, who generated a string of hits in the early 1960s defined by the lavish instrumental treatment known as the wall of sound, but who was sentenced to prison for the murder of a woman at his home, died on Saturday. He was 81. The cause was complications of Covid-19, his daughter, Nicole Audrey Spector, said. He was hospitalisedtaken to San Joaquin General Hospital in French Camp, California, on December 31 and intubated in January, she said.
Leonard Cohen in 1976
Credit: Getty
The door leading to the control room opened and down the steps came Phil Spector, wearing a blazer decorated with a marijuana leaf pattern. He walked into the recording suite where Leonard Cohen was laying down his vocals and grabbed the singer by the neck. Pressing a gun to the startled Cohen’s skin, the world’s most famous producer said, “Leonard I love you.” “I hope you do,” Cohen shot back.
It was the early hours of the morning at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles. And, not for the first time, Cohen wondered why he had agreed to work with Spector on what would become the Death of a Ladies’ Man album. The 1977 record is today regarded by Cohen fans as a curio. It was certainly a curious experience to make. At least for Cohen, who was confronted throughout by increasingly bizarre behaviour by Spector, the super-producer and convicted murderer who has passed away in prison aged 81.
Credit: Getty
As the creator of the ‘wall of sound’ production style, Phil Spector‘s influence on the foundations of pop music undoubtedly rivals that of the very top tier of pop’s most legendary figures. Yet a long history of abusive and manipulative behaviour, including threatening gunplay, culminated in the 2009 conviction of the murder of actor Lana Clarkson, which saw him die in prison and will justifiably overshadow his many achievements.
Spector – who died today aged 81 – was born Harvey Phillip Spector in New York in 1939. His forays into pop music began in the late ‘50s as a member of vocal group The Teddy Bears, who gave him his first US number one in 1958 with the million-selling ‘To Know Him Is To Love Him’, a phrase that was carved on his father’s gravestone. At the same time he studied production at Gold Star Studios in Hollywood and, following further success with his co-write on Ben E King’s ‘Spanish Harlem’, began working as apprentice to