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Phil Spector

1939–2021 · 82 years

The producer who built the Wall of Sound and died in prison

Portrait of Phil Spector — Unknown photographer — 1965 — Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The words on his father's gravestone became the first number one record he ever made. Benjamin Spector, deep in debt, died by suicide in April 1949, when his son was nine. The stone read: Ben Spector. Father. Husband. To Know Him Was To Love Him. Four years later Bertha Spector moved the family from the Bronx to Los Angeles and took work as a seamstress. Her son learned guitar, played a talent show at Fairfax High, and formed a group called the Teddy Bears. In 1958 he set the epitaph to music. To Know Him Is to Love Him reached number one that December. He was 18.

The method was mass and refusal. At Gold Star Studios he stacked guitarists on one part, doubled the pianos, buried the room in percussion and echo, and mixed the result to mono so no listener could pull it apart. He founded Philles Records in 1961, at 21 the youngest label owner in the country. Be My Baby. You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'. River Deep – Mountain High. A Christmas album that flopped in 1963 and became permanent. Later, Let It Be and All Things Must Pass. Tina Turner inducted him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.

The guns were not a rumor. Musicians who worked with him described handguns in the studio, and the record bears them out. During the 1973 Los Angeles sessions for John Lennon's Rock 'n' Roll he fired a shot in the room while Lennon was recording. Dee Dee Ramone said Spector pulled a gun on him when he tried to leave a session for End of the Century. Ronnie Spector, who married him in 1968 and sang lead on the records that made his name, wrote in her 1990 memoir that he kept her locked inside his California mansion for years and forbade her to perform. She escaped barefoot in 1972 with her mother's help, and surrendered her record earnings in the divorce.

Lana Clarkson was 40. She was an American actress and fashion model who starred in a run of sword-and-sorcery films in the 1980s. On February 3, 2003, she was shot and killed inside Spector's house in Alhambra, California. His first trial ended in September 2007 with a hung jury. A second jury convicted him of second-degree murder on April 13, 2009, and the judge sentenced him to 19 years to life. He died in a hospital outside prison on January 16, 2021, of what his daughter said were complications of COVID-19. Obituaries that treated the conviction as a blemish on the music were rewritten after readers objected. The records are still on the radio.

Lifespan

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Phil Spector's life against the full span of the corpus.

Notable works

To Know Him Is to Love Him song
The Teddy Bears — written from the epitaph on his father's gravestone, and a number one 1958
Be My Baby song
The Ronettes — the Wall of Sound at full height 1963
A Christmas Gift for You from Philles Records album
Released days after the Kennedy assassination and ignored, then permanent 1963
You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' song
The Righteous Brothers — the label's second number one 1965
River Deep – Mountain High song
Ike & Tina Turner — number 88 in America, number three in Britain. He called it his best work 1966
All Things Must Pass album
George Harrison — co-produced, and the last of the big ones 1970

Life in brief

with age at each point

April 1949 aged 9 His father dies by suicide, deeply in debt Spector was nine. The gravestone read: Ben Spector. Father. Husband. To Know Him Was To Love Him.
December 1, 1958 aged 18 To Know Him Is to Love Him reaches number one Recorded by the Teddy Bears and written from his father's epitaph. It sold more than a million copies inside the year.
1961 aged ~22 Founds Philles Records with Lester Sill At 21 he was the youngest label owner in the country. Sill was gone within two years.
1968 aged ~29 Marries Ronnie Bennett, lead singer of the Ronettes
1970 aged ~31 Produces the Beatles' Let It Be and George Harrison's All Things Must Pass Paul McCartney was furious about the overdubs on The Long and Winding Road. John Lennon defended the work.
1989 aged ~50 Tina Turner inducts him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame He entered as a non-performer, 23 years after he produced River Deep – Mountain High for her.
February 3, 2003 aged 63 Lana Clarkson is shot and killed at his house in Alhambra, California Clarkson was 40, an actress and fashion model. Spector's driver made the emergency call.
April 13, 2009 aged 69 Convicted of second-degree murder A first trial had ended in a hung jury on September 26, 2007. He was sentenced on May 29, 2009, to 19 years to life.
January 16, 2021 aged 81 Dies at 81 in a hospital outside the prison holding him His daughter Nicole said the cause was complications of COVID-19.