Phil Spector: More Than A Nut

With the Phil Spector verdict just hours away, it's probably appropriate to bring up the fact that despite clearly being nuts, Phil Spector was a heck of a producer and a force in rock music.

I've been reading Tearing Down the Wall of Sound by Mick Brown, and thought you might enjoy some stuff about Phil.

--Phil Spector is an accomplished jazz guitar player. In his early years, he played on recording sessions with the Drifters and the Coasters.

--While Phil adopted several children, he's had biological children as well. On Christmas Day, 1991, nine-year-old Philip Jr. died of leukemia.

--Phil loved the Ramones. He thought they were the best rock and roll band in America. He produced "End of the Century" which came out in 1980, their most commercially successful album.

--The Beatles recorded Spector's "To Know Him Is To Love Him" on a demo for Decca Records--and were rejected by the label. The song, by the way, was based on the epitaph on his father's gravestone: "To Know Him Was To Love Him." Spector's father, Ben, committed suicide in 1949. Phil idolized his father, and apparently has never gotten over his death. Phil's mother, Bertha, would tell him when he was a kid: "Your father killed himself because you were a bad child."

--Sonny Bono worked for Phil Spector as a gofer, promotions person, back-up singer (along with Cher) and what-have-you.

--Narrows' alum Leon Russell played keyboards on a number of Phil Spector's productions.

--Phil's actual first name is "Harvey," which is what his family called him when he was growing up.

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