Phil Spector was known as the first Tycoon of Teen. And yet he thought he could ‘improve’ Bob Dylan.
It’s hard to say that it is sad that Spector has died aged 81 in squalor and prison, rumoured to have been dispatched into the after-life by Covid.
After all, he was a murderer and a gun-toting madman.
But on the other hand he revolutionised pop music and created an amphetamine rush that had generations dancing like dervishes for more than half a century.
It is fair to say however that it is sad that Phil Spector died trapped in the Walls of Prison when his Wall of Sound set so many of us free.
He was born in the Bronx and began his career in 1958 with the Teddy Bears, singing their US number-one single “To Know Him Is to Love Him”.
Spector became a music producer known for creating The Wall Of Sound used by 60s bands like The Ronettes and The Crystals.
But in 2009 he was sent to prison for the 2003 murder of Lana Clarkson, sentenced to 19 years.
He caught coronavirus in prison four weeks ago and died after being transferred to hospital.
Before the murder Spector had lived an exclusive and eccentric life in his electrified 10-bedroom mansion in Alhambra, LA. It had electric fences covering the windows and front door. Inside it was festooned with framed pictures and clippings all about Phil. There were pinball machines and jukeboxes with his hits firmly on the playlist.
His hero was John Hammond who, while with Columbia Records, brought Bob Dylan to the label.
But Dylan had created his own wall of sound on his incredible Like a Rolling Stone.
And mad Spector didn’t appear to like it when he heard the howling vitriolic poetic dramatic attack on the middle-class senses of America and then the UK.
In an interview with music writer Nick Bornholt which appeared on Gaslight https://gaslightrecords.com/news/phil-spectors-first-listen-to-like-a-rolling-stone
Records, his attitude was described this way: “Phil doesn’t hear fresh and new and revolutionary in “Like A Rolling Stone”. He hears stolen chord changes, handing Ritchie Valens the credit to a timelessly reworked rock & roll rhythm; that’s how it feels to Phil, that’s how it feels.
“The production’s all wrong in Phil’s eyes, too dependent on the genius of the artist, but the canvas ain’t right. The recording’s never been right.
“He dreams of taking the reins and ringing the thing for all its worth. He dreams of making something like opera with a folk-rock fat lady… He dreams of improving Dylan.”
Hmmm.
Finally, when Leonard Cohen collaborated with Spector on Death of a Ladies Man – which featured Bob on backing vocals on one track with Allen Ginsberg – Spector pointed a loaded pistol at Cohen’s throat, cocked it, and said, “I love you, Leonard.” Cohen responded, “I hope you love me, Phil.”
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