Tom Dunne's Music & Me: Phil Spector showed it's possible to be a genius and a murderer
Phil Spector and The Ronettes in 1963. He married Ronnie Bennett (centre), and subjected her to terrible abuse.
The night Phil Spector died I got immediate texts telling me not to say anything about his passing on Twitter. Friends watching the social media reaction had been astounded by its toxicity. “Stay off it,” they said, or they will “fix it for you!” I stayed schtum.
But I was torn. ‘Be my Baby’ is an astounding song, and yet the man behind its beauty had also murdered Lana Clarkson. I struggled, but the next day was blessed to talk to Mick Brown, the author of Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector, who had interviewed Spector just weeks before the murder.
He pointed out the obvious: It is possible to be a musical genius, and also a murderer. That is not a point you can make in the binary world of social media. Life is complicated, people are complicated, and Spector was one of the most complex.
Brown interviewed him in 2003 at his Beverly Hills mansion. It was his first in 25 years. He’d talked of music but also of the “devils inside that fight me”. He said it was his daughter Nicole that had most inspired him to seek help. “I wanted her to look up at me and say, this is what a reasonable man is like.”
His early life had not been pretty: born in the Bronx in 1939, his dad had died by suicide when he was nine. Moving to LA he was bullied at school but salvation came through music. At 19, paraphrasing the inscription from his dad’s headstone, he had written and produced 'To Know Him Is To Love Him', a US number one.
By 20 he had co-written Spanish Harlem for Ben E King before setting up his own label and inventing what is known as the ‘Wall of Sound’, a production technique, recording dozens of musicians simultaneously and building up the track to create a huge, euphoric wall of sound.
The sound epitomised that decade’s urgent, optimistic, energy and made Spector its leading producer. Twenty top 40 hits followed, most notably The Righteous Brothers' ‘You Lost That Loving Feeling’ – still the most played song on American Radio - and ‘Be My Baby’ for the Ronettes.
When Brian Wilson first heard ‘Be My Baby’ he had to pull over to the kerb. He was astonished, describing it as pop perfection. He listened to it endlessly, describing Spector as the single biggest influence on his career. This was where I struggled.
When fame hit, Spector was anything but a ‘reasonable man'. He attempted to keep his first wife, Ronnie Spector, under almost lock and key. Refusing to allow her drive alone he had a life sized mannequin of himself made to accompany her when he was absent. He even took her shoes so that, when she did eventually escape, she did so barefoot.
The gun stories are also among the most jaw-dropping tales. John Lennon, The Ramones and Leonard Cohen all tell tales of his brandishing guns in the studio, in one case caressing Cohen’s neck with one. He wore different guns, holstered, to match different outfits. A recurring theme was that he didn’t want people to leave.
The Spector that biographer Brown talked to that night in his mansion was aware of all that. He talked of being schizophrenic, and on medication. And he talked of how his daughter Nicole had coaxed him back into production. He had just worked with Starsailor and there was talk of producing Coldplay.
Lana Clarkson at this point had had a varied career as an actress in TV and film, she’d even been in Scarface. Now, however, she was branching out into stand-up, had just produced her own show reel and had taken a part time job in the House of Blues as a hostess. Meeting Spector at the end of a shift she accepted an invitation to go back to his house for a drink.
When Darlene Love, who had sung with Spector in the 1960s heard of the shooting, she said it was something that she had felt was always going to happen, and it was no surprise when it did. You can’t help but wonder about that. There were so many red flags.
Tom Dunne recently wrote about five of the gigs he'd love to have been at. Many readers responded with their own choices, via the online form and Twitter. Here's a selection:
- Declan: Bruce Springsteen at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1975 - The famous "finally London is ready for Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band" - I've seen it on DVD since and while it does capture the magic of a Boss gig, to be there for the opening chords of Thunder Road would have been unreal.
- Enda: The gig I would most like to have seen was The Band's 'The Last Waltz' on Thanksgiving Day 1976 in San Francisco! And why? The fact that there is a film of it and everyone knows it was such an amazing show and all those very special guests, I would have loved to have been there.
- John: XTC when they played the Arcadia in Cork.
- Ricky: The Birthday Party, anywhere they played.
- Edwin: Jeff Buckley in Whelan's would have been nice.
- Siobhán: The Specials and The Beat at the Arcadia in Cork in 1981.
- Bernard: Pixies at the National Stadium in 1990 - due to a miscommunication, the ticket that was supposed to be bought for me while away in the US on J1 never materialised. Those I know who did get to it said it was terrific, chairs being ripped up and thrown aside by the moshing audience, Pixies at their most potent at the time. Later I did get to see Black Francis at Feile in Thurles, that was amazing, but always wish I could have made it to the National Stadium gig. Also, Blue In Heaven in Sir Henry's in 1987 - first year at UCC, a week before my 18th birthday, and the bouncers would not let me in. Shane O'Neill climbing the rafters in Henry's ceiling space, stage diving into the crowd - another great gig missed.
- Dave: Graham Parker and The Rumour in the old Teach Furbo (Co. Galway) around 1978 or 1979. Stick to Me had just been released and he was at the height of his powers. My father wouldn't let me go as the venue reputedly had republican associations. An older friend told me, years later, that it was one of the best gigs he's ever been to.
- Ger: Christy Moore in Cleere's, Kilkenny, walked out my front door, had a choice of left to pub nearby or right to Cleere's a bit further away, laziness won, while Christy played a free spontaneous set in Cleere's for about 20 people. It still bugs me nearly 20 years later.
- John: Prince and the Revolution New York 1985; Tom Waits Olympia Theatre Dublin 1987; and Joni Mitchell, Isle of Wight Festival 1970.
- Edwin: Jeff Buckley in Whelans would have been nice.
- Cáit: Oh man, Bowie at the Point 2003 - I was invited and didn't go for some reason I can't remember - and that was his last tour.
- Mike: Sonic Youth and Nirvana at Sir Henry's, Cork, in 1991. A close second would be Therapy? at the Ulster Hall, Belfast, in 1995. The BBC Radio 1 broadcast has pride of place in my bootleg collection, though the band was in the depths of internal turmoil: this was to be original drummer Fyfe Ewing's last gig.
- Nicky: David Byrne at The Point in 1989 with the Rei Momo. His South-American flavoured sound in contrast with his usual Art Rock persona. Loved the Album and would have loved to have been there.
- Tom: The Smiths, National Stadium, 1985. Tickets were £6.50, I had £4.60 and didn't want to ask my parents for the money. I was in 6th year and it was a school night, and 1980's Ireland was not a place of financial extravagance.
- Julie: I've always said Queen at Wembley '86 if I had a time machine, but if I was allowed more than one trip, I'd head for the Harlem Apollo for a Mototown revue show. Or maybe an Aretha show there. OH! And a trip to CBGB in '75 when Patti Smith was in residency there before she recorded Horses. I'd actually never come back, I think.
- Sharon: In 1979, we had just bought our first house so couldn't afford to go to Dublin to see Queen, and in 1986 I had a toddler and another on the way so missed out again at Slane... BUT had the pleasure of seeing Queen & Adam Lambert in Dublin a few years ago.
- Philip: Tangerine Dream in Cork, Sonic Youth/Nirvana in Henrys, Shane MacGowan's birthday gig in National Concert Hall, Metallica in the early 1980s and Pearl Jam in the Point.
