Tearing Down The Wall of Sound

If you are even remotely interested in the work of Phil Spector – the blueprint for ‘mercurial producer,’ responsible for some of the hugest hits of the modern age, and currently in prison for murder, natch-  i implore you to check out the consumately readable biography Tearing Down The Wall of Sound by Mick Brown.

 Blazing with ambition, enamored of his own talents and, let’s face it, kind of a jerk, the book takes you from his humble East coast beginnings to his rise as one of the most successful record producers ever (he apparently, is even responsible for coining the term ‘producer’ as opposed to ‘director) to descent into increasingly bizarre and paranoid behavior and concluding with his recent murder trail (where it frustratingly cuts off before conclusion).

 You know “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling,” “Da Doo Run Run,” “Be My Baby,” Tina Turner’s monumental “River Deep – Mountain High” (that despite it’s urgent, crashing, orchestral production, sounds like it was recorded in a bathtub), as well as his later work resurrecting (or ruining) the Beatles’ Let It Be album and George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass. His Christmas Album is probably one of my all time favorite records (best of the bunch: The Crystal’s “Winter Wonderland) (Double sidenote: did you know the album was released on the day of the Kennedy assassination and flopped. Only entering the lexicon years later? Me neither.) and I’d consider myself a fan.  But there are tons of songs, whose creation is fascinatingly detailed, that I had never heard at all. In fact, one of my favorite things to do while reading the book was to click through my phone to actually hear the songs I was reading about. Here are some of my favorite discoveries.

 Spector’s wife Ronnie Spector (of The Ronettes) was more prisoner than paramour. But this latter single is absolutely dynamite.

 The Ronettes – “You Came, You Saw, You Conquered”

 Darlene Love (of The Crystals) is probably one of my favorite vocalists that he worked with. Another lost treasure.

 Darlene Love – “Long way To Happy”

 One of his later productions was an album by Dion (“Runaround Sue”) that was met with crushing indiferrence. Here’s how the book describes this track from Born To Be With You: “‘Whole World In His Hands’, which has an echoing Dion battling against a titanic string arrangement and what sounded like the morman tabernacle choir, attains a weird, transcendent beauty.” Rather lovely, supremely weird.

 Dion – “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands”