I just found out that a convicted killer who was once a somebody in the entertainment field, Phil Spector, 81, has died in prison after contracting COVID-19. Spector was once a giant in the entertainment field, best remembered as a producer who wrote, co-wrote, and/or produced some of the most famous records of the early 1960s, especially with girl groups like the Ronettes, even marrying (and later divorcing) one of them, Ronnie Bennett Spector. He also was involved with producing some of the final Beatles records but not without controversy. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.
His style of producing records, typically overproduced complete with orchestral background, was dubbed "the wall of sound." He was in my view the greatest music producer of all time--everybody else who followed him is derivative. He was a true original.
Spector started out as a singer with a group called the Teddy Bears and wrote their signature hit, "To Know Him Is to Love Him." The song title was taken off his father's tombstone. Spector's background was truly tragic, complete with suicides and mental illnesses in his family. It is little wonder he wound up messed up himself despite all the fame and fortune. One could argue the fame and fortune made his mental illness or illnesses worse.
Spector was one strange man. He was known to pull guns on his girlfriends and even on some men like John Lennon. He was completely unpredictable although many of his acquaintances and girlfriends knew it was only a matter of time before this habit got completely out of hand.
And it did early in 2003. The target was a woman Spector barely knew, 40-year-old Lana Clarkson, a woman who had a minor acting career and worked at a restaurant and live music establishment, the House of Blues. One night, February 3, 2003, Spector offered to take Clarkson to his mansion after she finished her shift, and this is when it turned horrible. Despite Spector's protestations to the contrary, claiming Clarkson had committed suicide at his house, she indeed had been killed by Phil Spector. Unlike some other celebrities charged with varying degrees of murder such as Claudine Longet, O.J. Simpson, and Robert Blake, Phil Spector ultimately didn't get away with his crime or, like Longet, get a slap on the wrist. In 2009, Spector was sentenced to 19 years to life for the killing. It was his second trial for the killing. He was serving his prison sentence at a Stockton, California, facility at the time of his death.
Clarkson's mother later sued Spector's insurance company, with the case being settled out of court in 2012.
Although he had long been bald, Spector was known during his trial for his array of wild wigs. He even wound up with a far-younger wife, a woman no doubt looking for a fat inheritance along the way. She was wife number three, but Spector realized she was less than an ideal wife and divorced her while he was in prison. Following the breakup, he had one of his children in charge of his financial affairs.
As can be seen from the picture, Spector actually looked better in his natural bald state than in those rugs.
After learning the ropes as a record producer, Mr. Spector, the central figure in Tom Wolfe’s 1965 essay “The First Tycoon of Teen,” became a one-man hit factory. Between 1960 and 1965 he placed 24 records in the Top 40, many of them classics.
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 within a few years he was playing in jazz groups.
Spector formed the Teddy Bears in 1958 with high school friends Marshall Lieb and Annette Kleinbard. Spector took the title of his first production, “To Know Him Is to Love Him,” from the inscription on his father’s gravestone. It was a Number One hit, but the group’s subsequent singles, as well as their sole album, The Teddy Bears Sing!, flopped and the group quickly dissolved.
When he was 18, Spector caught the eye of veteran L.A. producer Lester Sill, who instructed Spector to go to New York and work with Sill’s former proteges, the 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, helming Ray Peterson’s hit version of “Corinna, Corinna,” Gene Pitney’s “Every Breath I Take” and Curtis Lee’s “Pretty Little Angel Eyes.”
In late 1961, Spector and Sill formed Philles Records. (The label name was a contraction of the owners’ first names.) Spector’s reputation as a producer ballooned as he focused his attention on girl group called the Crystals, who had hits with “There’s No Other (Like My Baby)” and “Uptown.” After a third single, the controversial “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)” flopped, Spector fired the original Crystals, replacing them with singer Darlene Love her backing group, the Blossoms. (Such summarily dictatorial decisions would be a hallmark of Spector’s career.) The personnel change worked: The new Crystals’ first single, the million-selling “He’s a Rebel,” became Philles’ first Number One single. Just a year after forming the label, Spector bought out Lester Sill’s share. At 21 years old, Phil Spector was a millionaire.
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