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.