Phil Spector

From Wikipedia:

Harvey Phillip Spector (December 26, 1939 – January 16, 2021) was an American record producer, musician, and songwriter who is best known for his innovative recording practices and entrepreneurship in the 1960s, followed decades later by his two trials and conviction for murder in the 2000s. Spector developed the Wall of Sound, a production style that he described as a Wagnerian approach to rock and roll. He is regarded as one of the most influential figures in pop music history and one of the most successful producers of the 1960s.

Born in the Bronx, Spector moved to Los Angeles as a teenager and began his career in 1958 as a founding member of the Teddy Bears, for whom he penned “To Know Him Is to Love Him”, a U.S. number-one hit. In 1960, after working as an apprentice to Leiber and Stoller, Spector co-founded Philles Records, and at the age of 21 became the youngest ever U.S. label owner to that point. Dubbed the “First Tycoon of Teen”, Spector became considered the first auteur of the music industry for the unprecedented control he had over every phase of the recording process. He produced acts such as the Ronettes, the Crystals, and Ike & Tina Turner, and typically collaborated with arranger Jack Nitzsche and engineer Larry Levine. The musicians from his de facto house band, later known as “the Wrecking Crew”, rose to industry fame through his hit records.

In the early 1970s, Spector produced the Beatles’ Let It Be and several solo records by John Lennon and George Harrison. By the mid-1970s, Spector had produced eighteen U.S. Top 10 singles for various artists. His chart-toppers included the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'”, the Beatles’ “The Long and Winding Road“, and Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord“. Following one-off productions for Leonard Cohen (Death of a Ladies’ Man), Dion DiMucci (Born to Be with You), and the Ramones (End of the Century), Spector remained largely inactive amid a lifestyle of seclusion, drug use, and increasingly erratic behavior.

Spector helped establish the role of the studio as an instrument, the integration of pop art aesthetics into music (art pop), and the genres of art rock and dream pop. His honors include the 1973 Grammy Award for Album of the Year for co-producing Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh, a 1989 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and a 1997 induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2004, Spector was ranked number 63 on Rolling Stone‘s list of the greatest artists in history. In 2009, after spending three decades in semi-retirement, he was convicted for the 2003 murder of the actress Lana Clarkson and sentenced to 19 years to life in prison. He died in prison in 2021. […]

1970: Beatles collaborations

In early 1970, Allen Klein, the new manager of the Beatles, brought Spector to England. After impressing with his production of John Lennon’s solo single “Instant Karma!”, which went to number 3, Spector was invited by Lennon and George Harrison to take on the task of turning the Beatles’ abandoned Let It Be recording sessions into a usable album. He went to work using many of his production techniques, making significant changes to the arrangements and sound of some songs. Released a month after the Beatles’ break-up, the album topped the U.S. and UK charts. It also yielded the number 1 U.S. single “The Long and Winding Road“. Spector’s overdubbing of “The Long and Winding Road” infuriated its composer, Paul McCartney. Several music critics also maligned Spector’s work on Let It Be; he later attributed this partly to resentment that an American producer appeared to be “taking over” such a popular English band. Lennon defended Spector, telling Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone: “he was given the shittiest load of badly recorded shit, with a lousy feeling toward it, ever. And he made something out of it. He did a great job.” […]

[Phil Spector and us] were quite good friends in the beginning. We used to talk a lot, and we admired him because of his work, and his productions. And we did hang a little bit when he came to London. We thought he was one of the greats because of the records he’d made. He told us to not bother with B sides but to put ‘Singalong with She Loves You’ on the B side; put [out] the backing track. So, we said, ‘No, Phil,’ ’cos we remembered how much these records cost us when we were in Liverpool. And we went the other way—‘Strawberry Fields’ and ‘Penny Lane’—we always tried to have really good value.

Paul McCartney – Audio interview with Johnny Black for Mojo magazine, March 6, 2003 – From “The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969 – 73” by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, 2022

They don’t know that it was no favor to me to give me George Martin’s job, because I don’t consider myself in the same situation or league… I don’t consider him with me. He’s somewhere else. He’s an arranger, that’s all. As far as Let It Be, he had left it in a deplorable condition, and it was not satisfactory to any of them, they did not want it out as it was. So John said, ‘Let Phil do it,’ and I said, ‘Fine.’ Then I said, ‘Would anybody like to get involved in it, work on it with me?’ ‘No.’ George came down a couple of times to listen, Ringo came down and overdubbed drums, John said, ‘Send me an acetate when it’s finished,’ Paul the same thing, and that was it. They didn’t care. But they did have the right to say ‘We don’t want it out’, and they didn’t say that. In five years from now, maybe people will understand how good the material was.

But at that time everyone was saying, ‘Oh Beatles, don’t break up, give us something else to remember you by,’ and you give it to them and then the critics just knock the shit out of it. ‘It’s awful, it’s this, it’s that’ … but it’s your Beatles, your great Beatles! Forget my name… if my name hadn’t been on the album, there wouldn’t have been all that. George told me that, John, everyone… that’s the dues you have to pay. It was nothing to me… I had my reputation before the Beatles were around. I’m not over-cocky or anything, but they know that and I certainly knew that. I knew who I was and what I was before I met the Beatles.

Phil Spector – From “Phil Spector: Out Of His Head” by Richard Williams, 2009

Critically, I was destroyed. They just panned the shit out of me. It was fun to see people getting into it … ‘how Spector ruined the Beatles’ and how I took all the guts out of them. Now that it’s sold three million, and it’s all over and done with, they should listen to what was there beforehand, I mean really listen to it. The Beatles didn’t want it out. That was never brought up in the reviews. If the Beatles had wanted it out, they would never have asked me to do it. But they were ashamed of the album, they hated the album, and there was a lot of work in editing and putting things together. We spent weeks on that album, really, just putting it together and overdubbing strings. And then, in the end, they said, ‘You can be the final judge of it, if you like, because we’re really not involved in it and we don’t like it any more.’ I said no, you be the final judges, and every one of them sent me a telegram saying, “It’s great, this is okay, you’re taking a great burden off us all.”

Phil Spector – From “Phil Spector: Out Of His Head” by Richard Williams, 2009

Albums, EPs & singles which Phil Spector contributed to

Songs written or co-written by Phil Spector

Songs Phil Spector contributed to

Recording sessions Phil Spector participated in