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ROCK AND RDLL HALL DF FAME

Phil Spector

By Lenny Kaye

T h e W A L L - to keep in, to keep out; to set a further edge, a border; a Broadway” ; befriended young songwriting teams like component o f rooms, o f houses; upon which to hang overhead micro­ and , Barry M ann and Cynthia W eil, and Gerry phones, tympanis, orchestral bells, reverberations, decorations and decla­ G offin; and tested his three-track theories in a series o f production liai­ rations, limitation without limitations - o f Sound. A Back-to-Monolith. sons with artists like , , Curtis Lee and the created that W all, making a music o f both grandeur and Paris Sisters. intimacy. Like a poperatic conductor, he gathered the dedbelic forces o f By late 1961, Spector was ready for “Tomorrow’s Sound Today.” the universe in service o f its most simplistic emotion: the moment when That became the motto o f , which he formed with Lester love reveals. Sill and immediately successful with ’ “There’s N o Other His was the space-time continuum o f the three-minute single, a verse- (Like M y Baby).” Phil twisted the echo knob another notch, and by mid- chorus-bridge epiphany meant to be experienced in the present tense: “Be 1962, Philles was in high gear. The Crystals assured us that “He’s Sure M y Baby,” ‘T o Know Him Is to Love Him,” “(Today I Met) The Boy the Boy I Love,” even “Uptown,” while Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans I’m Gonna Marry.” Spector’s work, at random, presents pop-ular at its wondered “W hy Do Lovers Break Each Other’s Hearts?” Phil Spector least ephemeral and most elemental, a we-put-the-us in music. Da Doo was twenty-one years old. R o n R on . was Spector’s “best” voice: as a member o f , Harvey Phillip Spector, bom December 25th, 1940, in , was her harmonies were heard on dozens o f recordings and live shows before not merely a producer o f records; he was, and remains, A Record Produc­ and after her Philles hits. But when Phil discovered an aspiring “girl er. His public persona, flash and double daring, embodied an oversoul group” from Manhattan called , his heart sang its greatest that graced his art w ith genetic identity. hosannas: “Baby, I Love You,” “Walking in the Rain,” “D o I Love You,” The impresario o f sound’s musical genesis began at Fairfax High “(The Best Part of) Breakin’ Up (Is W hen You’re Making Up).” The School, where he learned to play and . In 1957 he and school­ echo grew, and begat itself, until the sound encompassed the car radio mate Marshall Lieb began writing . A third friend, Annette Bard, and home phonograph, becoming one with the heavens above. And then joined Spector and Lieb to form . W ith that group, the there was A Gift to You... skinny seventeen-year-old wrote his first Top Ten hit T o Know Him Is His style gradually grew more cavernous, massive, possessed o f its ow n to Love Him,” inspired by the inscription on Spector’s father’s gravestone inexorable momentum and majesty. sang “Un­ (T o Know Him W as to Love Him”), was the only hit for the Teddy chained Melody,” and as the river o f flowed to the sea, only the res­ Bears, w ho disbanded shortly thereafter. onant echo remained. Each new single sought to top the previous one, Spector recognized (in the liner notes to the group’s LP) that “in no until — with Turner howling into the gale-force winds o f “River other field o f creative . . . endeavor can the youngster express himself Deep, Mountain High” - Tom orrow’s Sound Today” caught up with for so m any.. . . People buy the sound, the , the beat, and yesterday’s memories . Realizing he’d come to the end o f an era, the rhythm.” Phil retired Philles Records in 1967, bringing to a close five years o f un­ Spectof’s creative genius flourished. Eighteen years old, back in N ew paralleled innovation. York, he co-wrote with Jerry Leiber what was to become a megahit for Though a nò less intense presence in the studio, Spector now took up a Ben E. King, “Spanish Harlem.” Tom W olfe in a legendary 1964 essay new role behind the scenes. He helped organize the miles o f documented the skyrocketing success o f the young writer-producer. He tape that comprised L e t It B e; produced ’s A ll Things most aptly dubbed Spector “The First Tycoon o f Teen.’;;. .? M u st Pass; and was instrumental in the creation o f John ’s bound­ Spector bad a singular knack for matching great performers - singers ary-breaking and Im agine LPs. In the eclectic Seventies, like Darlene Love, , the Righteous Brothers and the Ron- Spector produced the first Derek and the Dominos single, “Tell thè ettes’ Ronnie Bennett (later to becom e ); players like Truth” ; a thrilling Darlene Love single, Mann and W eil’s “Lord, If drummer , pianist , saxophonist Teenage” Steve You’re a W oman”; ’s Death o f a Ladies’ Man; and the Douglas; arrangers like and engineers like , in R am ones’ End o f the Century. studios like Gold Star, in cities like - w ith the most wonder­ His classic records surround us still: the Ronettes’ “Be M y Baby” has ful o f songs: ‘W alking in the Rain,” “He’s a Rebel,” “You’ve Lost That been heard in four different films (For Keeps, Quadrophenia, M ean Streets Lovin’ Feeling,” “River Deep, Mountain High.” In the hallowed confines and D irty D a n cin g). A new version of that first Number One, T o Know o f the studio, he created a multilayered environment for the Him Is to Love Him,” recorded by , and to happen. , became BM I’s most-played country song o f 1987- In The chronological measuring stick o f a Phil Spector production is in December 1988, SRO crowds packed N ew York’s Bottom Line for a lov­ its expanding use o f echo. He had originally become intrigued w ith the ing onstage re-creation o f A Christmas G ift to You, starring Ronnie Spec-' while watching Lee Hazelwood record . It tor and Darlene Love. was about the same time that Phil was taken under the business wing “Nobody ever wrought deeper changes in the way the rock industry o f entrepreneur . A n apprenticeship in N ew York City with looked, felt, behaved,” wrote Nik Cohn. T o come out o f a vacuum and the writing-producing team o f Jerry Leiber and M ike Stoller (begin­ force such changes, at such speed, w ith such totality — even now, it’s hard ning in M ay 1960) was his entree into society. It was to conceive the force and self-belief it must have taken. Phil there that Spector played the guitar break on ’ “On Spector, no doubt, was an earthquake.” HALL DF FAME

THE PRODUCERS The Kind of Noise You Can’t Forget: 19601964

By Ken Barnes

I n THE BEGINNING, giants rocked the earth. And after them came the bel, Ludix. produced the Majors (“A W onderful Dream”), producer-entrepreneurs, molding their artist protégés into craven images and the Enchanters (“Cry Baby”), (“Time o f the rock 6? roll pioneers. The starmakers valued the over the Is on M y Side”) and “Stay with Me,” by . sound, creating armies o f cigar-store Elvises and idol curiosities. It was al­ In the early Sixties, the N ew York record biz institutionalized the hus­ together too much m a n q u é business. The script they followed was tle long before Van M cC oy (who was scraping together a record here summed up in Bill Parsons’s “A ll American Boy”: “Along come a man and there) made it a dance h it Spector and so many others started there, w ith a big cigar/He said, ‘Come here, boy, I’m gonna make you a star.’J?* following the example or under the direct tutelage o f , But by the turn o f the Sixties, the entrepreneurs had shifted their em­ Jerry Leiber and M ike Stoller and A1 Nevins and - triple- phasis from the look to the sound. threat producer--deal- Manufacturing hits was still the makers w ith a few years’ head game’s aim, but the new script start on the new breed. Some of was Gene McDaniels’s “Hundred the up-and-comers slaved in cubi­ Pounds of d ay”: “He took a hun­ cles in the song factories. A fter a dred pounds o f clay/And he creat­ while Jeff Barry and Ellie Green­ ed. ...” W hat the producer-entre­ wich, hearing their perfect fits o f preneurs created were “ little romantic depression dressed for symphonies for the kids,” as Phil success by Spector’s and Bems’s Spector, with all die hauteur an discoveries, would get the urge a u teu r could conjure up, charac­ to role-play their own. They terized his records. would throw Jelly Beans into the Spector, o f course, was the clas­ ring, release Butterflys and drum sic producer-creator o f the early up (starring Barry Sixties. (The producers’ heyday and Greenwich themselves — the lasted roughly through 1964, perfect guinea pigs for their proto- when foreign influences and the bubblegum experiments). “ I ideal o f the self-contained writin’- W anna Love Him So Bad,” singm’-playin’ rock group reduced “Goodnight Baby,” the thunder­ the creative Svengali’s influence in ous “The Kind of Boy You Can’t mainstream rock - though domi­ Forget” - all fierce exaltations of nant producer-writers have con­ the crush-and-bum syndrome. tinued to flourish in the Rfe?B In their wake, a novice like realm.) But Spector arose not from Russ Titelman could think, “I can cracked and barren musical pave­ do that,” deliver two o f the most ments but from a field in full aching, sumptuous, knockdown- bloom. A ll over the U.SA.., producers were creating distinctive songs gorgeous hymns to the sacred somnambulism o f love, ’ “I and indistinct singers and groups to perform diem. Girl groups, w ho tend­ Never Dreamed” and the Cinderellas’ ^ fif This Is Just a Dream, Then) ed not to write, produce, play instruments or insist on creative control, Please Don’t W ake M e,” see them expire unacclaimed and reclaimed for were well suited to the producer-entrepreneur’s needs, but male groups scrap vinyl, persevere anyway and go on to serve as producer for Steve and solo singers o f both genders were also there for the shaping. W inw ood, , , Brian W ilson and many others. Bert Bems, perhaps N ew York’s consummate cigar-chomping beh ind- And a Long Island no-hoper like Shadow M orton could bluff his way the-scenes genius, worked w ith all varieties o f artists - , in to see Barry and Greenwich, bluff them into thinking he was a hot- , , the great, underrated . Produc­ prospect producer, bluff some girls from the ’hood to be his musical vehi­ ing, writing (often under the pseudonym Bert Russell), even recording (as cle, keep bluffing all the way to the first scheduled session until he real­ Russell Byrd), Bems churned out classics — “ and Shout,” “Tell ized the bluff would be blown unless he had a song, pull his car to the Him,” “Hang On Sloopy.” He was farsighted enough to venture to Eng­ side o f the bluff and rough out “Remember (W alkin’ in the Sand),” drive land in 1964 and record the first tracks by Van Morrison (with Them) on to the session and bluff the tune past the skeptical Shangri-Las and the and Lulu, among others. He would go on to introduce and impatient Barry and Greenwich, who were there to coproduce. A t least the M cCoys to the world before his untimely death in late 1967. that was Shadow M orton’s myth-conception, and when he followed up Close but no cigar were a couple o f Bems’s N ew York compatriots: Lu­ with “The Leader o f the Pack,” who cared about the color o f his lies? (“I ther Dixon produced , and Maxine don’t know, he’s always wearing shades.”) Brown for Scepter/Wand Records and the Chantéis for his own la­ Another Spector haunted , an enigma in a minor key ROCK AND RDLL HALL DF FAME

- Abner Spector, producer o f the atmospheric “Smoky Places,” by the arranger-producer, worked w ith the early O ’Jays and w ith Corsairs, and éminence grise behind the Tuff label, whose most mysteri­ (in the guise o f his band, the Upsetters). moved from ous moment, frozen in eternity, was the Jaynettes’ “Sally G o Round the Phoenix w ith and Duane Eddy in the Fifties and settled in Roses,” impenetrable slurry haze imbued w ith the sinister magic o f jump- L A . to produce A1 Casey’s “Surfin’ Hootenanny” (a magnificently auda­ rope rhymes and dark secrets. Abner later produced another , cious melding o f seemingly incompatible fads), girl groups like Yolanda the Hearts (who may w ell have been the Jaynettes fallen on hard times), and the Castanets and the lovely Darlenes and later . Terry on a song called “Dear Abby,” in M elcher, ’s son, pro- which the advice-dispensing hero­ Wap (Srmttn? Imitatimi H itt thc duced tw o exceptional, emotional ine counseled the girls, waiting melodramas by Frankie Laine, seasons with bated breath, to go on a diet edition “ I’m Gonna Be Strong” and o f worms, w ithout any audible “Don’t Make M y Baby Blue.” He AMERICAN CRUCIFIXION AND RESURRECTION theological rationale. moonlighted as a surfer in the Rip Facing the same quandary as Chords, Bruce and Terry and the Barry and Greenwich, Burt Ba- H ot Doggers and continued as a charach hooked up with quondam gospelizer Dionne W arwick for a ÜipÆSeasonS succession o f elegant and aloof but Guitarist *2** impassioned slices o f city-slick Electrocuted cSingGBigcHits irycBurtcBacifaradi HalcDawl BobcDy!ar¡ soul. Their first hit, “Don’t Make M e Over,” still chills and thrills in a realm of its own. W arwick’s PHONE FOILS HOLD LP male counterpart in the Bacharach stable, Lou Johnson, is less w ell re­ membered, but his “If I Never Get to Love You” is a rich paean to the pain o f unrequited love. - Phil M argo, •OMS IATI M itch Margo, Hank Medress and BB1AIT8ICI (K RK>A0 iisBisgirtags BBSS Jay Siegel - went from artists to producer-entrepreneurs. The proudest protégées o f the team ■ were , the Bronx’s soft-centered answer to the more insistent ■ siren songs o f the Crystals and the Ronettes. The Chiffons’ actual discov­ aill erer, Ronnie Mack, who also wrote their signature song, “He’s So Fine,” ÏTHE# SEASONS unfortunately died shortly after that record’s immortalization in the an­ nals o f wistful thinking. But the Tokens provided the exceptionally anon­ ymous Chiffons - who never during their 1963-66 ascendancy so much as had their surnames acknowledged in liner notes - w ith present­ able material from the best N ew York song designers. “One Fine Day,” appropriated intact from a Carole King demo sans lead vocal, was the Chiffons’ pinnacle, although aging, well-worn Chiffoneers have furnished evidence that the perhaps equally transcendent “W hen the Boy’s Hap­ py,” recorded by the Four Pennies, is actually by the Chiffons. M eanwhile, in Los Angeles, the entrepreneurial spirit flourished in equal measure. Spector had migrated there from N ew York for high school and the Teddy Bears era. He returned to N ew York to apprentice with Leiber and Stoller, only to return to L A once Philles Records was off the ground. But this recording M ecca boasted many creative forces. graduated from writing songs like “W onderful W orld” w ith his erstwhile partner to presiding over ’s evolution from doo-wop to surf until supplanted by the ambitious Jan Berry. Adler also produced - in this period immediately preceding his his­ toric work with , the Mamas and the Papas and Carole King - vocal groups like the excellent Untouchables, former Cricket Son­ ny Curtis’s poignant “A Beatle I W anna Be” and the second most suc­ cessful version o f “Alley-Oop,” by Dante and the Evergreens. The “Alley-Oop” of song and story, however, was recorded by the Argyles (named, one presumes, after the Hollywood street _ ^ i ______iij rather than the sock) and conceptualized by Gary Paxton, a cryptic char­ hitmaker w ith and Paul Revere and the Raiders. And most re­ acter who also exhumed Bobby “Boris” Pickett and his “,” cently, he was the architect o f “Kokomo,” ’ startling 1988 robbed the grave once too often with “Riboflavin-Flavored, Non-Carbon- return tick et t o th e p op tops. ated, Polyunsaturated Blood,” by Don Hinson and the Rigamorticians, But I mustn’t leave the impression that everything in this van was tossed off a jew el o f a girl-group record called “Love Can’t Be a One-W ay happening in N ew York and L A , in fact, were in Chi­ Deal,” by the Rev-Lons, recorded Leon Russell and and cago, where their singer and producers like Carl Davis moved on to Christianity and Nashville, not necessarily in that order. were bringing M ajor Lance to public notice. In Norfolk, Virginia, And there were more L A . lights: H.B. Bamum, the veteran Rfe?B Frank Guida served up raucous, monolithic tune stones by Gary U.S.

MSK ROCK AND RDLL HALL OF FAME

proud and prescient “You Don’t Own M e” for before un­ leashing the Spokesmen (with “ o f Correction,” the conservatives’ answer to “Eve o f Destruction”), (“ 1-2-3”) and Daryl Hall. W orking the - border was sometime barber Huey P. M eaux, Bert Bems w ith a Southern drawl, the man who put the cagey in Cajun. Huey would spring up out o f the swamps every so often with a ■ , , ! WHAT A N Y sleeper hit like “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,” by Jivin’ Gene, and ‘You’ll THE KIMB If BOY V II SANT FORGET Lose a Good Thing,” by Barbara Lynn, or hook up with Ronnie Milsap or Roy Head or Johnny W inter before their time came. Huey’s own time OA-DOO-RON RON came again later w ith the Sir Douglas Quintet and Freddy Fender. Down NOT TO Y0UN6 TO GET MARRIED in N ew Orleans, , Harold Battiste and many more were rolling out irresistible R& B party grooves. Plan8 OGnat Oita This could go on forever, touching on every city, state and even differ­ ent states o f mind. There were highly successful producers on staff or af­ ¿MURRAY HILL' filiated w ith a single label (Mercury’s , Liberty’s Snuff Gar­ rett, Reprise’s and M otown’s famous and not so famous staffers - Smokey, Berry Gordy Jr., Holland-Dozier-Holland, M ickey Ste­ venson, Robert Bateman). These producers were not so radically pirati­ cal, not so bound to the karmic wheel o f the deal as the entrepreneurs, but they represented a creative force that should not be forgotten. green Over most if not all o f these entrepreneurological case studies looms the shadow o f Spector. Some seemed to appropriate aspects o f the Spector projection: England’s closest equivalent, D on Meek, carried the eccentrics o f the trade to extremes, recording in bathrooms and erecting shrines to Buddy H olly while catching satellite fever early w ith “Telstar,” by the Tornadoes. Others wanted to steal a chunk o f the Spector sound - Brian W ilson had a religious respect for Spector and attempted to hit the W all with the Honeys and Shar­ 1IS TE W E JHIII rssssK'si& í i on M arie but succeeded only when driving the The Best Of Solomon Burke Beach Boys’ 409-powered mean vocal machine GOT TO GET YOU OFF MY MIND straight at it on “ Don’t The Price GEj^SETSSj If You Need Me W orry Baby” and its suc­ cessors. Acolytes Jack Everybody Needs Somebody To Love Nitzache and Sonny fek J H H i u s t Out Of Reachl [Words applied their Spector ses­ sion lessons well on obscu­ I Re a l^Pon’t Want To Know rities like “Yes Sir That’s M y Baby” (cf. “Zip-a-dee- DowtHn^Th^Valley f y J ^ Home In Your Hear doo-dah”), by Hale and the s N ic m « M u m MANHATTAN Tonight's The Night Hushabyes, and “Dream n u K u w . n i Baby” (cf. the Spector rec­

H f m Hanging Up My Heart For You m m i u r w m ord of your choice), by SI. LOUIS Gherilyn (cf. ). Best o f SURF CITI IZI all the sincere flatterers m may have been David TALLAHASSEE Bonds (e.g., “Quarter to Three,” as im- HONOLULU LULU «MBflHHMtrR Gates, before he was in­ penetrably overwhelming, in its murky bred in Bread, with the ti­ fashion, as Spector’s best w ork) and tanic “You’re So Fine,” by apocryphal calypso adaptations by Jim­ Dorothy Berry, and - the my Soul (“If You W anna Be Happy” apotheosis o f imitation - and the largely incomprehensible “Twistin’ M atilda”). “M y One and Only Jimmy Boy,” by the Girlfriends. In the City o f Brotherly Cheese Steaks was perhaps the most efficient But perhaps the most prolific and definitely one o f the most successful assembly line o f hits, supervised by Philly yets , Bemie Lowe o f the men who would be Spector was , teen-dream singer, and . , , and, more songwriter, producer, empire builder. The Four Seasons were the fran­ esthetically gratifying (at least to girl-group cultists), and Dee chise, and Crewe, working with future group member Bob Gaudio, Dee Sharp made their Cameo appearances demoing dances by the dozens quickly progressed from the shrill thrills o f “Sherry” and “Big Girls Don’t for denizens o f the Bandstand. In the midst o f the twist, the fish, the frug, Cry” to heartbreak epiphanies like “Dawn,” the vengeful “Big M an in the mashed potato, the and the crossfire, they made many, Town” and the iuwpen-throat masterpiece “Rag Doll.” A nd if Crewe’s-con- many records w ith surprisingly enduring impact. trol efforts by A ce Kennedy and the Candies and Kevin McQuinn (with* Fellow Philadelphians John Madara and Dave W hite, failed teen idols “Philly-del'fi-yea,” a title that thoroughly discourages more in-depth investi­ both, had a couple o f minor dance sensations: “Slop Time,” by the Sher- gation) deserve their obscurity, others, like “Across the Street,” by Lenny rys, and “Dancin’ the Strand,” by Maureen Gray. They also made fine O ’Henry, and the creative-overload kitsch-in-sync extravaganza “I W on’t girl-group records with those artists and with the Secrets, the Pixies Tell,” by Tracey Dey, stand up to the best of an underrated Three and the Bobbi-Pins. They went overground by writing the era o f overflowing, fermented pop creativity.

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