Various Artists - Phil Spector - The Early Productions (2010) Ace - Pop/R&R/R&B/Soul+++Booklet

In the early 60s, pop was a hidden industry whose interface with the public existed only at performance level. The big money wasn’t around then and the record game wasn’t seen as a legitimate vocation for sons and daughters. In this subterranean world, income depended on factors that were both difficult to predict and control and it seemed a safer bet becoming a lawyer, a doctor or a dentist. This was the awesome challenge facing 21 year-old Phil Spector as he barnstormed his way through recording circles, making an immediate impact with major hits such as ‘Spanish Harlem’ (Ben E King), ‘Pretty Little Angel Eyes’ (Curtis Lee) and ‘Corinna Corinna’ (Ray Peterson). It all began for Spector with the Teddy Bears, an ad hoc vocal group he organised as a vehicle for his songs back in 1958. Events had moved fairly quickly in his life since he’d moved with his mother and sister from the Bronx to Los Angeles in 1953. By the time he’d graduated from Fairfax high School in 1957, Spector had become proficient on the guitar and turned his hand to song writing. Some crudely recorded demos including ‘Don’t You Worry My Little Pet’ caught the attention of Doré Records who sanctioned further recordings resulting in the worldwide hit ‘To Know Him Is To Love Him’. Driven by personality conflicts, the Teddy Bears soon disbanded and Spector teamed up with Lester Sill and Lee Hazlewood, the force behind twangy guitarist Duane Eddy’s hits. Placed in charge of Sill’s new signing Kell Osborne, Spector wrote and produced the gritty ‘That’s Alright Baby’. Spector then expressed a desire to move back East. As a favour to their old mentor, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller agreed to look after him. Alternating between coasts, Spector recorded the Paris Sisters, a vocal trio signed by Sill. His faith in Spector was more than justified when the trio’s ‘I Love How You Love Me’ climbed to #5. Following a short stop at Liberty records, the only official staff post he ever held Spector walked away to concentrate on his own Philles label. Four years had lapsed since he’d stepped untrained into a recording studio with three friends to record a hit almost by chance. Since then, he’d learned his craft, paid his dues and finally become his own boss. Now, at 23, he had the industry in the palm of his hand and only himself to account to. “Phil Spector: The Early Productions” covers this formative phase of Spector’s career without duplicating too many hits available on other CD,s. 12 of the generous 28 tunes are new to CD at the time of release and both the sequencing and mastering make them a delight to the ear while the booklet is a presentational tour de force. Let’s remember him this way rather than the other.

THE MAN..HIS LIFE..HIS CAREER

Phil Spector, in full Harvey Phillip Spector, (born 1940, New York City passed 2021, French Camp, California-Prison), This famous but tormentered record producer of the 1960s, was described by the writer Tom Wolfe as the “First Tycoon of Teen.” There had been producers since the beginning of the record industry, but none had assumed the degree of control demanded by Spector. At age 18 he and two Los Angeles school friends recorded “To Know Him Is to Love Him,” a simple teenage ballad written by Spector, its title taken from his father’s gravestone. Released under the name of the Teddy Bears, it was one of the biggest hits of 1958. But the group was never to be heard from again, because Spector had other ideas. He moved to New York City and served an apprenticeship with the writer-producer team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller before branching out to supervise the recordings of Curtis Lee (“Pretty Little Angel Eyes”),the Paris Sisters (“I Love How You Love Me”), and others. In 1961, needing to escape the restraining influence of older and more conservative opinion, he formed his own label, Philles Records, and, working at Gold Star Recording Studios in Los Angeles, he began to release a string of records that demonstrated his unique vision of what pop music could achieve in its age of innocence. With the Crystals’ “Da Doo Ron Ron” and “Then He Kissed Me” and the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” and “Baby I Love You,” Spector blended conventional teen romance sentiments with orchestral arrangements of immense scale and power in what he described as  “little symphonies for the kids.” .He didnt give Darlene Love the credit for singing lead on most of the crystals hits which has remained a mystery to everyone in the business including Darlene. Others called it the wall of sound, and the style reached a peak in 1965 with the blue-eyed soul of the Righteous Brothers’ epic “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” a huge worldwide hit. Spector threatened to top it with Ike and Tina Turner’s majestic “River Deep,Mountain High” the following year, but some sectors of the music industry,jealous of his success and irritated by his arrogance, ensured its Commercial failure.
A wounded Spector went into a retirement from which he briefly emerged in 1969 to work on the solo records of John Lennon and eorge Harrison, at whose behest (and to Paul McCartney’s lasting displeasure) he completed the post production of "Let It Be", the Beatles’ final album. Later collaborations with Leonard Cohen and the Ramones were no more successful than his attempts to re-establish his own label. His time had gone. Spector was absent from the spotlight for most of the next few decades, during which he gained a reputation as a recluse. However, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989. Spector then made headlines in 2003, when actress Lana Clarkson was fatally shot at his home. He was subsequently charged with murder, and his 2007 trial ended in a mistrial after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision. At Spector’s retrial, begun in October 2008, the presiding judge ruled that jurors could consider the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter as well as the original murder charge. After six months of testimony and 30 hours of deliberation, the second jury found Spector guilty of second-degree murder, and in May 2009 he was sentenced to 19 years to life in prison. His health later deteriorated, and in 2014 he was transferred to a prison-run medical facility. Spector died from complications 2021.Love him or hate him the guy was a genius in the studio,shame about the flawed personality!

AMM

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