The legendary, and eccentric, music producer Phil Spector has died at 81 years of age from complications derived from Covid-19 that he contracted in prison while serving a sentence for murder, according to the BBC.
Spector built his fame in the recording industry by participating in some of the hits of The Beatles, Tina Turner, Righteous Brothers, The Ronettes and Ramones, among others.
His eagerness to improve the definition of the recordings led him to refine in the sixties a more expensive and tedious technique, based on adding more and more instruments to the recording sessions by superimposing, then the sound tracks. Which allowed him to achieve an orchestration known as the wall of sound that was key in the rock recordings to come.
Spector also used echo chamber studios to amplify the reverberation, giving the recording greater sonority which, contrary to what was popular at the time, stood out for its forcefulness rather than for the clarity of the different sections (string, winds, choruses, etc …)
However, not all artists were satisfied with their work. The most notorious case is that of Paul McCartney who never hid his distaste for the sound reported on the Let it Be album recorded in 1969 by The Beatles, reissuing the album in 2013, renaming it Let it Be … Naked (Let it be. .. Naked).
The music producer was sentenced in 2009 to 19 years in prison for second-degree murder for the death of actress Lana Clarkson in 2003. Using blood fingerprints and other clues at the crime scene, the prosecution presented Spector as the man who he held a loaded pistol to Clarkson’s mouth and pulled the trigger.
The defense, on the other hand, maintained at all times that the woman committed suicide because she was going through a professional and personal crisis.
Amelia Warner
Amelia Warner writes all the Latest Articles. She mostly covers Entertainment topics, but at times loves to write about movie reviews as well.
