SPECTOR, PHIL

SPECTOR, PHIL (Harvey Philip; 1940– ), vastly influential rock music producer, who produced, arranged, and co-wrote some of rock & roll's earliest classic tunes in the late 1950s and early 1960s; member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Spector was born in the Bronx to Bertha and Benjamin, a Russian Jewish immigrant who committed suicide in 1949. Spector, his mother, and sister, Shirley, moved to Los Angeles in 1953, where Spector quickly proved proficient on numerous instruments and became acquainted with L.A. rhythm and blues musicians, including songwriters jerry leiber and mike stoller , with whom he would later collaborate on the No. 1 hit "Spanish Harlem." By 1958, having secured a small recording contract, Spector wrote and performed what became his first No. 1 hit, "To Know Him Is To Love Him," inspired by words written on his father's gravestone. In 1960, having apprenticed himself to Los Angeles music veterans, including Lee Hazlewood, Spector began producing numerous pop singles for journeyman singers. Two years later, having become a millionaire from "Spanish Harlem" and other early hits, Spector developed his own, innovative production method. Later known as the "Wall of Sound," Spector massed Los Angeles musicians and instruments into elaborate arrangements that produced pop classics of undisputed emotional and sonic impact. The lyrics for Spector's songs were often produced by the mainly Jewish songwriting teams carole king and Gerry Goffin, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, and Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. His hits included "Be My Baby," by the Ronettes, and "Da Doo Ron Ron," by the Crystals, both "girl groups," a genre Spector is credited with having defined. The Ronettes were led by Veronica "Ronnie" Bennett, later one of Spector's three wives. In 1965, "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" by the Righteous Brothers reached No. 1, despite being nearly four minutes long – one-third longer than the accepted standard. Spector got around that rule by deliberately misprinting the song's time on the record's label. Spector's rule of the charts faded after that, and he went into self-imposed exile. He repeated his success in the early 1970s with individual members of the Beatles, producing memorable albums for George Harrison (All Things Must Pass) and John Lennon (Plastic Ono Band), but Spector earned the longstanding enmity of Beatle Paul McCartney for adding strings, horns, and chorus to the uncompleted tapes of the Beatles' Let It Be album. He was named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989. Spector's litigious and eccentric behavior tarnished his reputation, and he was accused of pulling weapons on several of his artists, including leonard cohen , with whom he worked in the 1970s. In 2003, an actress was found shot dead in Spector's Los Angeles home, and he was slated to stand trial for murder in 2006. (Alan D. Abbey (2nd ed.)