Phil Spector, Dead at 81

[Basslice]

The guy was a huge factor in music production. People can claim that anyone could have created the sounds he did, but they didn't - he did. It was quite a big thing at the time and he was a sought after producer for a while. Maybe it sounds dated and nasty now, but at the time, that sound made people's careers.

Spector was also a murderer and he was sentenced to 16-to-life for his crime. He died in prison. That is also a fact.

Being a bad person does not erase whatever achievements that they did. He ended up paying for his crime. That is no solace for his victim's family, but it is what it is. Hell, I still think Bill Cosby was one of the best comedians in my lifetime even though he is an imprisoned convicted rapist. I still listen to some of his older comedy records and laugh my butt off. William Shockley was a vile racist, a horrible person, but that does not negate the fact that he invented the transistor, won the Nobel Prize for his work on something we all use daily.

People are human and flawed. Some make serious errors for whatever reasons. Some may be plain evil to the core. However, while it might seem convenient to try to erase a person's legacy, it is not really being honest with history.

 

[dalkowski]

Many of them also unknowingly like Carol Kaye's playing.

Not really my point but whatever.

 

[bobyoung53]

Drunken vehicular manslaughter, by his own admission. Supposedly haunted him to the end of his days.

The charges were thrown out except that he pleaded guilty to the driving charges.

 

[LBS-bass]

Phil Spector, lionized producer of 1960s pop and convicted murderer, dies

Weeks before Clarkson’s death, Mr. Spector sat for an interview with British journalist Mick Brown for the biography “Tearing Down the Wall of Sound,” published in 2007. Asked about rumors of his alcohol abuse and paranoia, Mr. Spector said he had not been well for years.

“I was crippled inside,” he said. “Insane is a hard word. . . . I take medication for schizophrenia, but I wouldn’t say I’m schizophrenic. But I have a bipolar personality, which is strange. I have devils inside that fight me. And I’m my own worst enemy.”


Link Removed

You know, I need to tread carefully here because I have a lot of history with this crap. My mother was schizophrenic. One of my closest friends is bipolar. One my my husband's close friends is schizophrenic.

None of them ever serially abused a spouse or murdered anyone.

I feel bad for anyone whose mental illness drives them toward those kinds of outcomes. But hopefully they can get help. My bipolar friend has had trouble with angry outbursts when he's in a manic phase. He's on medicaid, and sometimes when he's tried to get into treatment it seems like being lucid enough to want to get treated at those facilities means that they think he's not sick enough to need treatment, so he gets hung out to dry until he does something so dramatic that they have to do something to help him. That's not a good situation.

But Spector? Here's a guy who could have walked into any private treatment facility, paid the $50,000 and had himself a nice vacation with all the good drugs. Maybe he was resistant to treatment, but maybe he also didn't belong on the street.

Drug and alcohol abuse is a symptom with people like this. They do this because they can't get themselves right, and it's an attempt to self-medicate. It's not a cause. So let's be sympathetic for a minute and ask, if this is the case with Spector, what failed him?

 

[Son of Wobble]

I've never heard of it before, this is what I found, sound true to you? It looks like the judge threw th charges out.

The Tragic Truth Of Keith Moon's Car Accident

I would demur to the opinion of a Who historian, of which this site must have a few.
My intended analogy was a crude one, but to double down, reckless gonzo behavior can have deadly result. Moon of course didn't mean to run over his driver (if he in fact did). I also believe that Phil Spector did not mean to kill Lana. I say that because it was his established modus operandi to threaten, intimidate and terrorize people, specifically women, with guns. But he also stopped short of killing them, until he didn't. He seems like he was basically a bully and a sadist.

 

[bobyoung53]

You know, I need to tread carefully here because I have a lot of history with this crap. My mother was schizophrenic. One of my closest friends is bipolar. One my my husband's close friends is schizophrenic.

None of them ever serially abused a spouse or murdered anyone.

I feel bad for anyone whose mental illness drives them toward those kinds of outcomes. But hopefully they can get help. My bipolar friend has had trouble with angry outbursts when he's in a manic phase. He's on medicaid, and sometimes when he's tried to get into treatment it seems like being lucid enough to want to get treated at those facilities means that he's not sick enough to need treatment, so he gets hung out to dry until he does something so dramatic that they have to do something to help him. That's not a good situation.

But Spector? Here's a guy who could have walked into any private treatment facility, paid the $50,000 and had himself a nice vacation with all the good drugs. Maybe he was resistant to treatment, but maybe he also didn't belong on the street. There are many people in jail who should not be there, mayn=be he was one? I don't know, I'm just asking a rhetorical question.

Drug and alcohol abuse is a symptom with people like this. They do this because they can't get themselves right, and it's an attempt to self-medicate. It's not a cause. So let's be sympathetic for a minute and ask, if this is the case with Spector, what failed him?

I'm a retired psychiatric RN. He was on medication for both bipolar and schizophrenia per the WAPO obituary tonight. He was a sick man. You cannot generalize about etoh and drugs like that, it's not that simple. Maybe he was enabled by the industry but in the end, he got jailed and paid for his crime, some societies would put someone like him in a psychiatric hospital much easier than he could have gotten into one here.

 

[bobyoung53]

I would demur to the opinion of a Who historian, of which this site must have a few.
My intended analogy was a crude one, but to double down, reckless gonzo behavior can have deadly result. Moon of course didn't mean to run over his driver (if he in fact did). I also believe that Phil Spector did not mean to kill Lana. I say that because it was his established modus operandi to threaten, intimidate and terrorize people, specifically women, with guns. But he also stopped short of killing them, until he didn't. He seems like he was basically a bully and a sadist.

Agreed on both, very sad actually.

 

[Deleted member 165050]

...
Drug and alcohol abuse is a symptom with people like this. They do this because they can't get themselves right, and it's an attempt to self-medicate. It's not a cause. So let's be sympathetic for a minute and ask, if this is the case with Spector, what failed him?

It's difficult to answer this without getting political. But as an outsider to the society Spector lived in, I'd say a culture that glorifies financial success and allows easy access to guns is what failed both Spector and his victim. Mods please delete this is that's too contentious. I know it's easy to be judgemental from outside. Like @Son of Wobble said, Keith Moon killed someone with a car.

 

[Wood and Wire]

I didn't know that about Joe Meek.

He was bipolar and schizophrenic, and as we know those maladies went largely untreated and even unidentified in the 60s.
More often than not, drunks and druggies are self-medicating to treat or mask an underlying issue. Meek's delusions took the form that he thought Decca Records were secretly recording him.

Joe Meek is a very interesting story. He produced some genius stuff in his home studio. “Telstar” by The Tornados and “Have I The Right?” by The Honeycombs for example. Then there’s his own really crazy stuff, like “I Hear A New World” by Joe Meek & The Blue Men. Also I believe he’s among the producers who rejected demos by The Beatles.

Oh and then there’s the unfortunate murder-suicide thing.






Give this one about 30 seconds to get fully wound up.

Check out the movie 'Telstar'. It doesn't shy away from any of that stuff.

 

[higain617]

It's a sad day for big hair.

 

[bobyoung53]

It's a sad day for big hair.

Or no hair.

 

[Pops OB]

I grew up just a couple of miles from his house where he murdered Clarkson, though I moved about 26 years before the murder.

 

[Pauly 4001]

Phil Spector's father committed suicide when he was 9. The song title "To Know Him Is To Love Him" was taken from the father's tombstone. His sister was institutionalized due to mental instability.
During the recording of Lennon's "Rock and Roll" Spector fired a pistol right next to Lennon's head which prompted John to say, "Don't f@ck with my hearing Phil". Spector stole the master tapes for the album and Lennon had to buy them back for $90,000.
A previous obit in the NY Times quoted Spector in the 90s started off an interview admitting that he was afraid of his mental stability and it did seem to be common knowledge from most folks who worked with him that he was dangerously unbalanced. Folks did continue to work with him for years with that knowledge.
It's a shame he couldn't get the help he so obviously needed and that he was allowed to continue on until he killed someone and that his wife and son were scarred by his actions.
He was one of the great record producers and music production was forever altered by his gifts even if George Harrison did go back and "de- Spectored" All Things Must Pass.

 

[bobyoung53]

George Harrison did go back and "de- Spectored" All Things Must Pass.

I didn't know that, I didn't like the other de-spectorized album, Let It Be Naked.

 

[Killing Floor]

Jaco didn’t get murdered by Phil Spector.

too soon?

 

[Snaxster]

Good riddance.

 

[Pauly 4001]

For the 30th anniversary of the album George remixed the album and included a couple out takes and additions.
He scraped off a whole bunch of the reverb. Harrison and Ken Scott were shocked at the amount of reverb they had used in 1970 and were keen to remix the album, but EMI vetoed the idea. Harrison released it on his own label. According to Scott, Harrison had suggested they include a bonus disc containing recollections from some of the album's contributors, starting with Ringo Starr. The idea was abandoned since Starr could not remember playing on the sessions at all.

 

[Son of Wobble]

 

[Son of Wobble]

 

[walksupright]

Violence against women should never be tolerated. Let’s agree on that.