Behind the Wall of Sound

"Tearing Down the Wall of Sound" by Mick Brown is a very well-written account of, as its subtitle states, the rise and fall of Phil Spector, legendary producer of a number of 60's hits, and, despite having made only a handful of recordings since the mid-70's, a continuing influence on pop music. Spector is in the headlines now because he is on trial, accused of killing actress Lana Clarkson in 2003. This book makes Spector out to be a kind of tragic figure who had many personal demons which he could not overcome, and the story of his sad life (man wants fame and fortune, gets them early in life, but never finds happiness and goes a little--or a lot, depending on whose side you're hearing--crazy) is compelling reading. He never seemed to recover from the suicide of his father or the untimely death of his son Philip Jr. of leukemia at the age of 9. He was constantly brandishing firearems, and supposedly threatened people such as John Lennon, Leonard Cohen, and Joey Ramone with a gun in order to get his way in the recording studio. He married Veronica Bennett (better known as Ronnie Spector), lead singer of the Ronettes, and promptly made her a prisoner in his mansion.

All of these horrible things are reported in a non-sensationalistic way and help turn the book into a real page-turner, but what I found even more interesting are the accounts of how Spector, his engineers, and his musicians created the "Wall of Sound," the dense mix of multiple guitars, keyboards, strings, and voices, overlaid with chiming percussion, that became his signature sound in hits like "Be My Baby" (The Ronettes), "He's a Rebel" (The Crystals), and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" (The Righteous Brothers). After a string of mostly girl-group hits in the mid-60's, the song that was perhaps the zenith of his method, "River Deep, Mountain High" by Ike and Tina Turner, was a bomb on the American charts (though it went top 5 in Britain) and Spector never quite recovered. He went into semi-retirement, though in the early 70's, he produced the Beatles "Let It Be," John Lennon's "Instant Karma" and "Imagine," and a record that is, for my money, the most gorgeous thing he ever did, George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord." The rest of the story is a slow spiral downward into alcoholism, egomania, and madness.

Spector was able to maintain his lifestyle through the songwriting royalties that have continued to roll in over the past 35 years, though Brown strongly implies that in some cases, his contribution to the songs on which he got co-writing credit was minimal, sometimes taking credit simply for changing a word here and there. Nevertheless, there is evidence here that Spector truly was a musical genius, and the fact that he languished after only a decade of producing music makes one sorry for the masterpieces that could have been. To my ears, the best modern example of the Wall of Sound is a song Spector had nothing to do with directly, Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" (and several other songs on that album). Among the first 45's I ever bought were "Black Pearl" by the Checkmates, which Spector produced, and Andy Kim's cover of "Baby, I Love You," which sounds like a more cleanly produced version of the Wall of Sound. Harry Nilsson did a great sound-alike version of "River Deep, Mountain High" on his album Pandemonium Shadow Show. This book is one of the better rock bios and I highly recommend it--its lack of an index or a discography is frustrating, though there are plenty of web sites about Spector and his influence, including the very good Spectropop. I also recommend the fabulous boxed set of his music, Back to Mono, which exhaustively covers his career to 1969.