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Phil Spector Dies
Phil Spector, one of very few people to fit the description “famed music producer and murderer”, died yesterday. Musically he may be most widely remembered for his “wall of sound” production technique on various hit songs of the early 60’s, which Brian Wilson sought to emulate with the Beach Boys.
Most Beatles fans are probably aware that he oversaw the completion of the Let It Be album after it had been abandoned. I didn’t know this until I read an on-line obituary just now, but he was also involved with Imagine and with All Things Must Pass.
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4 Replies
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I think i agree with McCartney here.
Keep it lean and mean and let the vocals and core instruments shine through.
Evidently Lennon DIDN’T agree. Maybe it was time to go on separately.
The great blessing was All Thing Must Pass. IMHO.
What are others thinking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_It_Be…_Naked
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Sad to hear the music world lose such a big contributor. I wasn’t aware of Phil Specters involvement with the Beatles. He certainly left his mark on pop music.
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I think “All Things Must Pass” showed Phil Spector at the top of his game! Tremendous!
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Well David, Phil Spector was certainly one weird and dangerous dude. A brilliant record producer, but tragically flawed. He married Veronica Bennett, later known as Ronnie Spector, who was the lead singer of the girl group the Ronettes (another group Spector managed and produced). They married in 1968 and adopted a son, Donté Phillip. In their 1974 divorce settlement, she forfeited all future record earnings and surrendered custody of their children. She alleged that this was because Spector threatened to hire a hit man to kill her.
Several music critics 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.” I agree, and it may have never been released without Spector’s involvement.
For Harrison’s multiplatinum album All Things Must Pass (number 1, 1970), Spector provided a cathedral-like sonic ambience, complete with ornate orchestrations and gospel-like choirs. The triple LP yielded two major hits: “My Sweet Lord” (number 1) and “What Is Life” (number 10). That same year, Spector co-produced Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band (number 6), a stark-sounding album devoid of any Wall of Sound extravagance.
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