Building The Wall Of Sound - Phil Spector's Golden Sixties

T here are only a handful of people from the 60s who can truly be said to have had a major and lasting effect on the record business: Ray Charles, Dylan, Lennon & McCartney, Brian Wilson, Hendrix, Berry Gordy and Aretha Franklin all immediately come to mind. But to their ranks should be added Harvey Phillip Spector, whose production skills not only created some of the most enduring pop records ever, but also had a direct and lasting influence on succeeding generations of artists and producers.

Spector explored uncharted territory of studio use, to produce some of the most audacious and aweinspiring pop music ever committed to tape. Music that not only hit massively at the time, but that keeps re-occurring in films, TV, the re-issue market, and even as obvious inspiration for new recordings like the recent Ode To LA from The Raveonettes’ Pretty In Black. Spector’s current charge for murder will doubtlessly fill many potentially salacious column inches, but they may also make new listeners seek out the material that made him famous in the first place.

Born on December 25 1940 in New York’s Bronx borough, Spector was only nine when his father died, unwittingly giving his son the inspiration for what was to become his first hit, To Know Him Is …

by Kingsley Abbott
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