WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.439 So if you really look at the history of, say, 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:05.900 the 20th century, you can probably point to, 00:00:05.900 --> 00:00:08.740 what, maybe three, four people who literally 00:00:08.740 --> 00:00:11.400 invented a sound. A sound, yeah, not just a new 00:00:11.400 --> 00:00:14.519 song. Right, not a new genre even, but a sonic 00:00:14.519 --> 00:00:17.339 texture, something that just fundamentally changed 00:00:17.339 --> 00:00:19.780 how we all hear music. It's a tragically short 00:00:19.780 --> 00:00:22.500 list, and right at the top of it, for better 00:00:22.500 --> 00:00:25.339 or worse, is Phil Spector. But the problem with 00:00:25.339 --> 00:00:27.579 Spectre, and this is really why we're doing this 00:00:27.579 --> 00:00:30.500 deep dive today, is that you can't separate the 00:00:30.500 --> 00:00:33.399 sonic architecture from the, well... the psychological 00:00:33.399 --> 00:00:36.939 architecture. The man who built the Wall of Sound, 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:40.719 this incredible Wagnerian, beautiful pop explosion, 00:00:41.039 --> 00:00:44.859 is the exact same man who died in a prison hospital, 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:47.899 a convicted murderer, unable to even speak. It's 00:00:47.899 --> 00:00:49.600 the ultimate paradox, isn't it? We always try 00:00:49.600 --> 00:00:51.179 to do that thing, you know, separate the art 00:00:51.179 --> 00:00:53.219 from the artist. You listen to the music, you 00:00:53.219 --> 00:00:55.460 ignore the guy behind the curtain. But with Spectre... 00:00:55.920 --> 00:00:58.380 I really don't think you can. The source material 00:00:58.380 --> 00:01:00.560 we're looking at today, I mean, the biographies, 00:01:00.560 --> 00:01:02.679 the core transcripts, the session logs, they 00:01:02.679 --> 00:01:06.459 all point to one single unifying thread. Control. 00:01:06.640 --> 00:01:10.099 Control. The absolute iron -fisted control he 00:01:10.099 --> 00:01:13.159 exerted over every single note of music was the 00:01:13.159 --> 00:01:15.900 exact same pathology that destroyed his life 00:01:15.900 --> 00:01:18.280 and the lives of people around him. And that's 00:01:18.280 --> 00:01:20.260 our mission today. We're not just going to recount. 00:01:20.670 --> 00:01:23.409 a biography, you know, A to B to C, we're trying 00:01:23.409 --> 00:01:26.090 to really understand the mechanism of that control. 00:01:26.489 --> 00:01:29.870 How does a poor, bullied kid from the Bronx become 00:01:29.870 --> 00:01:32.750 the tycoon of teen in just a few years? And then 00:01:32.750 --> 00:01:35.750 the flip side, how does that same obsessive genius 00:01:35.750 --> 00:01:40.680 curdle into something so... So dark and violent. 00:01:40.879 --> 00:01:42.579 And we should give a fair warning to everyone 00:01:42.579 --> 00:01:44.340 listening. We are absolutely going to geek out 00:01:44.340 --> 00:01:46.780 on the technical side of things. The 1960s production 00:01:46.780 --> 00:01:49.340 genius, the microphones, the arrangements, the 00:01:49.340 --> 00:01:51.620 echo chambers. Oh, for sure. But to tell the 00:01:51.620 --> 00:01:53.819 whole story, the second half of this dive has 00:01:53.819 --> 00:01:56.540 to go to some incredibly dark places. We're talking 00:01:56.540 --> 00:01:59.359 about abuse, isolation, and ultimately murder. 00:01:59.560 --> 00:02:02.340 It's heavy stuff, but it's necessary. You can't 00:02:02.340 --> 00:02:04.060 understand the ending of this story if you don't 00:02:04.060 --> 00:02:05.879 really, really look at the very beginning. And 00:02:05.879 --> 00:02:07.780 for Phil Spector, the beginning is defined by 00:02:07.780 --> 00:02:10.360 a single shattering event. It really all starts 00:02:10.360 --> 00:02:12.759 with the family dynamic. He's born Harvey Phillips 00:02:12.759 --> 00:02:15.599 Spector, 1939, in the Bronx. Right. Russian -Jewish 00:02:15.599 --> 00:02:18.099 immigrant family. And right away, there's this 00:02:18.099 --> 00:02:22.349 feeling of... The family name wasn't even originally 00:02:22.349 --> 00:02:24.650 Spector. It was something like Spectus or Spectors. 00:02:24.849 --> 00:02:27.610 And it got anglicized at Ellis Island, you know, 00:02:27.650 --> 00:02:29.830 the classic story. But there was a deeper secret 00:02:29.830 --> 00:02:31.530 in the house, something that Spector himself 00:02:31.530 --> 00:02:34.289 believed his whole life. The cousin theory. Yeah. 00:02:34.409 --> 00:02:36.930 He grew up believing, and the sources we have 00:02:36.930 --> 00:02:39.590 suggest this was a widely held, if whispered, 00:02:39.590 --> 00:02:43.310 family belief that his parents were actually 00:02:43.310 --> 00:02:46.270 first cousins. So imagine being a kid and hearing 00:02:46.270 --> 00:02:48.860 that. Right from the jump, you feel genetically 00:02:48.860 --> 00:02:51.659 compromised, like an outsider in your own bloodline. 00:02:51.740 --> 00:02:54.280 Exactly. And he was a small kid, you know, asthmatic. 00:02:54.280 --> 00:02:56.099 He got bullied relentlessly. He just had this 00:02:56.099 --> 00:02:58.860 cloud over him. But the event that broke everything, 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:01.219 the trauma that you can argue runs through every 00:03:01.219 --> 00:03:03.840 single record he ever produced, that happened 00:03:03.840 --> 00:03:06.879 in 1949. His father, Benjamin Spector. Yeah. 00:03:07.240 --> 00:03:09.759 His dad was a deeply troubled man. He was an 00:03:09.759 --> 00:03:12.120 iron worker, but he was just drowning in debt. 00:03:12.479 --> 00:03:15.139 And one morning, April 20th, he goes out to his 00:03:15.139 --> 00:03:17.000 car. which is parked in the family's attached 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:19.680 garage. He starts the engine. And doesn't open 00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:22.360 the garage door. Suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. 00:03:22.939 --> 00:03:26.639 Phil was nine years old. Nine! Think about the 00:03:26.639 --> 00:03:28.960 scale of that abandonment for a nine -year -old 00:03:28.960 --> 00:03:33.139 boy. The father figure in your life just vanishes. 00:03:33.639 --> 00:03:36.520 And the family, his mother Bertha and his older 00:03:36.520 --> 00:03:39.199 sister Shirley, they don't handle it with, you 00:03:39.199 --> 00:03:41.240 know, therapy and open discussion. Oh no, this 00:03:41.240 --> 00:03:44.099 was the 1940s. They handle it with silence. And 00:03:44.099 --> 00:03:46.900 then relocation. They pack up everything and 00:03:46.900 --> 00:03:49.139 move across the country to Los Angeles in 1953. 00:03:50.599 --> 00:03:53.400 Bertha gets a job as a seamstress. And Phil. 00:03:53.919 --> 00:03:57.280 He basically becomes a ghost. He enrolls in Fairfax 00:03:57.280 --> 00:03:59.800 High School. But he's invisible. He's the classic 00:03:59.800 --> 00:04:02.020 kid in the corner with the asthma inhaler, terrified 00:04:02.020 --> 00:04:04.419 of the world, carrying this massive unspoken 00:04:04.419 --> 00:04:06.500 grief. Until he picks up a guitar. And this is, 00:04:06.539 --> 00:04:08.500 I mean, it's almost a cliche, right? The instrument 00:04:08.500 --> 00:04:10.819 as a shield? The thing that lets the quiet kid 00:04:10.819 --> 00:04:13.189 finally speak? But for Spector, it wasn't just 00:04:13.189 --> 00:04:15.270 about playing chords. It was about expression. 00:04:15.530 --> 00:04:18.410 It was a way to process things. And he starts 00:04:18.410 --> 00:04:21.110 to find his tribe. He falls in with this crew 00:04:21.110 --> 00:04:24.110 of other outcasts and aspiring musicians, guys 00:04:24.110 --> 00:04:26.310 who would become big names later, like Lou Adler 00:04:26.310 --> 00:04:28.870 and Bruce Johnston. And this little community, 00:04:28.970 --> 00:04:32.550 this kind of musical gang, it leads to the formation 00:04:32.550 --> 00:04:34.949 of the Teddy Bears. And here's where I want to 00:04:34.949 --> 00:04:38.149 just pause, because the story of their first 00:04:38.149 --> 00:04:41.470 hit single is almost too perfect. It's so literary 00:04:41.470 --> 00:04:43.769 it feels like it should be fiction, but it's 00:04:43.769 --> 00:04:46.290 absolutely true. It's an incredible act of psychological 00:04:46.290 --> 00:04:50.470 sublimation. It's 1958. Spector is 18 years old. 00:04:50.589 --> 00:04:52.290 He's trying to write a song for his little high 00:04:52.290 --> 00:04:54.089 school group. And he can't get his father out 00:04:54.089 --> 00:04:56.810 of his head. Specifically, he's thinking about 00:04:56.810 --> 00:04:58.649 a trip they took back to the cemetery in New 00:04:58.649 --> 00:05:01.110 York after his father died. He's picturing the 00:05:01.110 --> 00:05:03.550 tombstone. And he remembers the epitaph carved 00:05:03.550 --> 00:05:06.350 into the stone. The epitaph on Benjamin Spector's 00:05:06.350 --> 00:05:09.899 grave read, To know him was to love him. Which 00:05:09.899 --> 00:05:12.519 is, I mean, what a phrase. And he takes that 00:05:12.519 --> 00:05:14.060 phrase, which, let's be honest, was probably 00:05:14.060 --> 00:05:16.519 a lie because his father was a troubled, difficult 00:05:16.519 --> 00:05:19.360 man who ultimately abandoned them. And he performs 00:05:19.360 --> 00:05:21.899 this amazing psychological trick. He twists it. 00:05:21.980 --> 00:05:24.439 He changes the tense. To know him is to love 00:05:24.439 --> 00:05:27.439 him. He takes his profound, complicated grief 00:05:27.439 --> 00:05:31.560 for a dead father and he repackages it. He turns 00:05:31.560 --> 00:05:35.019 it into a sweet, innocent teenage love ballad 00:05:35.019 --> 00:05:38.100 about a high school boyfriend. That is a staggering 00:05:38.100 --> 00:05:40.439 pivot for an 18 -year -old. He didn't just process 00:05:40.439 --> 00:05:42.699 his trauma. He monetized it. He turned it into 00:05:42.699 --> 00:05:45.120 a product. And they record it for a tiny label, 00:05:45.279 --> 00:05:48.639 Era Records. And it doesn't just do okay. It 00:05:48.639 --> 00:05:51.079 slowly climbs the charts and goes all the way 00:05:51.079 --> 00:05:53.800 to number one on the Billboard Hot 100. It sells 00:05:53.800 --> 00:05:56.720 over a million copies. Can you imagine the dopamine 00:05:56.720 --> 00:06:00.240 hit from that? You are a bleed, asthmatic, fatherless 00:06:00.240 --> 00:06:02.800 kid, and suddenly the entire country is singing 00:06:02.800 --> 00:06:05.279 your private pain. But they think they're singing 00:06:05.279 --> 00:06:07.839 about a high school crush. That has to fundamentally 00:06:07.839 --> 00:06:10.740 rewire your brain. It validated him completely. 00:06:10.959 --> 00:06:13.360 But here's the catch, and it's a big one. The 00:06:13.360 --> 00:06:15.379 Teddy Bears were not a very good band. Not at 00:06:15.379 --> 00:06:17.560 all. They were a vehicle for that one perfect 00:06:17.560 --> 00:06:21.319 song. They went on tour, and Spector hated it. 00:06:21.639 --> 00:06:24.759 He absolutely despised the lack of control in 00:06:24.759 --> 00:06:27.139 a live performance. The acoustics were bad, the 00:06:27.139 --> 00:06:29.819 audience was unpredictable, the band made mistakes. 00:06:29.860 --> 00:06:31.959 He wasn't in charge of the sound. Right, and 00:06:31.959 --> 00:06:34.420 he realized very, very quickly. I don't want 00:06:34.420 --> 00:06:36.139 to be the puppet on the stage. I want to be the 00:06:36.139 --> 00:06:37.899 puppet master in the booth. He wants to be in 00:06:37.899 --> 00:06:40.459 the control room. Exactly. So the band breaks 00:06:40.459 --> 00:06:44.410 up by 1959. The follow -up singles flop. Spector 00:06:44.410 --> 00:06:46.970 dusts himself off and decides he needs a real 00:06:46.970 --> 00:06:49.810 education, not college. He goes to the real University 00:06:49.810 --> 00:06:51.889 of Pop Music at the time. The Brill Building. 00:06:52.129 --> 00:06:54.490 He moves to New York and basically forces his 00:06:54.490 --> 00:06:57.290 way into the orbit of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. 00:06:57.370 --> 00:07:00.350 The absolute gods of that era. These guys wrote 00:07:00.350 --> 00:07:03.509 Hound Dog, Jailhouse Rock, Stand By Me. They 00:07:03.509 --> 00:07:05.550 were the architects of rock and roll songwriting. 00:07:05.769 --> 00:07:08.529 And Spector becomes their apprentice. And this 00:07:08.529 --> 00:07:11.250 is such a crucial period that often gets overlooked. 00:07:11.759 --> 00:07:13.579 He wasn't just fetching coffee and watching from 00:07:13.579 --> 00:07:16.360 the sidelines. He was a session musician. He 00:07:16.360 --> 00:07:19.160 was in the room playing on these records. That's 00:07:19.160 --> 00:07:21.699 Phil Spector playing the guitar solo on the Drifters 00:07:21.699 --> 00:07:24.680 on Broadway. It is. And he co -wrote Spanish 00:07:24.680 --> 00:07:27.819 Harlem with Jerry Leiber for Benny King. Wait, 00:07:27.860 --> 00:07:30.480 he co -wrote Spanish Harlem? That's a classic. 00:07:30.839 --> 00:07:33.129 It's a standard. And while he's doing all this, 00:07:33.189 --> 00:07:35.750 he's watching Leiber and Stoller work. He's absorbing 00:07:35.750 --> 00:07:38.430 everything. He's seeing how they manage the musicians, 00:07:38.709 --> 00:07:40.850 how they structure a three -minute drama, how 00:07:40.850 --> 00:07:43.209 they build a song. But he's also seeing what 00:07:43.209 --> 00:07:44.970 they aren't doing. He thinks they're still too 00:07:44.970 --> 00:07:47.089 traditional. He thinks they're still just recording 00:07:47.089 --> 00:07:49.990 a band in a room, and he's hearing something 00:07:49.990 --> 00:07:54.769 bigger in his head, something thicker, more orchestral. 00:07:55.240 --> 00:07:57.639 So he takes this incredible crash course in pop 00:07:57.639 --> 00:08:00.560 production, goes back to L .A., and in 1961, 00:08:00.680 --> 00:08:03.899 he makes a move that is just unprecedented for 00:08:03.899 --> 00:08:06.240 a guy his age. He co -founds his own record label, 00:08:06.379 --> 00:08:10.160 Phil's Records. Phil plus his other mentor, Lester 00:08:10.160 --> 00:08:13.800 Sill. He is 21 years old. 21. He is the youngest 00:08:13.800 --> 00:08:16.279 record label owner in the United States. And 00:08:16.279 --> 00:08:19.199 now, for the first time, he has total, absolute 00:08:19.199 --> 00:08:21.889 autonomy. And this is where his business strategy 00:08:21.889 --> 00:08:24.990 completely breaks from the norm. At the time, 00:08:24.990 --> 00:08:27.269 the industry model was basically throw spaghetti 00:08:27.269 --> 00:08:29.629 at the wall and see what sticks. Right. You sign 00:08:29.629 --> 00:08:32.730 20 acts, you release 50 singles, and you just 00:08:32.730 --> 00:08:34.789 pray that three of them become hits. It was a 00:08:34.789 --> 00:08:37.330 volume game. Spector looked at that model and 00:08:37.330 --> 00:08:40.330 said, that's stupid. That's inefficient. He went 00:08:40.330 --> 00:08:42.970 for extreme scarcity. He wanted to release very 00:08:42.970 --> 00:08:45.330 few records, but he wanted every single one of 00:08:45.330 --> 00:08:47.990 them to be a smash hit. He treated pop music 00:08:47.990 --> 00:08:51.289 not as a disposable commodity, but as a major 00:08:51.289 --> 00:08:54.750 artistic event. Each single was like a movie 00:08:54.750 --> 00:08:56.590 premiere. And to make sure they were hits, he 00:08:56.590 --> 00:08:58.669 had to control the product from conception to 00:08:58.669 --> 00:09:01.230 consumption. Right. Which brings us to the invention 00:09:01.230 --> 00:09:04.220 he's most famous for. The wall of sound. The 00:09:04.220 --> 00:09:06.139 wall of sound. Now, I really want to break this 00:09:06.139 --> 00:09:08.620 down technically because people use that term 00:09:08.620 --> 00:09:11.100 so loosely today to just mean, you know, loud 00:09:11.100 --> 00:09:14.519 music. But in 1962, this was a very specific, 00:09:14.659 --> 00:09:17.840 almost scientific acoustic formula. His pitch 00:09:17.840 --> 00:09:21.259 was little symphonies for the kids. That was 00:09:21.259 --> 00:09:24.100 the phrase he used. He wanted the grandeur and 00:09:24.100 --> 00:09:26.980 the emotional weight of a Wagner opera, but he 00:09:26.980 --> 00:09:29.799 wanted it compressed into a three minute, 45 00:09:29.799 --> 00:09:32.679 RPM single. And it all started with the personnel. 00:09:32.899 --> 00:09:35.740 He didn't use small, tight rock and roll bands. 00:09:36.019 --> 00:09:38.860 He assembled a collective of LA's best session 00:09:38.860 --> 00:09:41.789 players. The Wrecking Crew. The legendary Wrecking 00:09:41.789 --> 00:09:44.750 True, Hal Blaine on drums, the incredible Carole 00:09:44.750 --> 00:09:47.850 Kay on bass, Larry Nechtel on keys, Glen Campbell 00:09:47.850 --> 00:09:50.669 on guitar. These were mostly jazz players. I 00:09:50.669 --> 00:09:52.289 mean, these guys could play anything you put 00:09:52.289 --> 00:09:54.350 in front of them. But Spector didn't want them 00:09:54.350 --> 00:09:56.789 to play like individual jazz musicians showing 00:09:56.789 --> 00:09:59.309 off their chops. He wanted them to play as a 00:09:59.309 --> 00:10:02.370 single massive organism. So in a normal session 00:10:02.370 --> 00:10:05.049 back then, you'd have one guitar, one bass, one 00:10:05.049 --> 00:10:08.110 piano, a drum kit. Spector would book three piano 00:10:08.110 --> 00:10:11.250 players. Four or five guitarists. Two, sometimes 00:10:11.250 --> 00:10:13.330 three bassists. And here's the crucial part. 00:10:13.450 --> 00:10:15.549 They weren't playing complex harmonies or counter 00:10:15.549 --> 00:10:17.830 melodies against each other. No, they were all 00:10:17.830 --> 00:10:20.309 playing the exact same notes at the exact same 00:10:20.309 --> 00:10:23.269 time. So from a physics standpoint, what does 00:10:23.269 --> 00:10:25.909 that do to the sound? Because if you have three 00:10:25.909 --> 00:10:28.070 pianos all playing a C chord, it doesn't just 00:10:28.070 --> 00:10:30.250 sound like one really light piano, right? It 00:10:30.250 --> 00:10:32.549 completely changes the timbre, the character 00:10:32.549 --> 00:10:36.149 of the sound. Because no two human beings can 00:10:36.149 --> 00:10:39.110 hit a piano key or pluck a guitar string at the 00:10:39.110 --> 00:10:42.230 exact same microsecond. So you get these tiny, 00:10:42.330 --> 00:10:46.330 almost imperceptible delays, milliseconds of 00:10:46.330 --> 00:10:48.450 difference between each player. It blurs the 00:10:48.450 --> 00:10:50.570 attack of the note. It blurs the attack and it 00:10:50.570 --> 00:10:54.320 creates this incredible thick wash of tone. it 00:10:54.320 --> 00:10:56.379 stops sounding like a piano and a guitar, and 00:10:56.379 --> 00:10:59.220 it starts sounding like this new hybrid instrument 00:10:59.220 --> 00:11:01.039 that you've never heard before. It creates a 00:11:01.039 --> 00:11:03.399 texture where you can't easily pick out the individual 00:11:03.399 --> 00:11:05.419 instruments anymore. Precisely. It becomes a 00:11:05.419 --> 00:11:07.840 wall of sound. And then you factor in the room. 00:11:07.919 --> 00:11:10.279 He worked almost exclusively at Gold Star Studios 00:11:10.279 --> 00:11:13.379 in Los Angeles, specifically Studio A. And it 00:11:13.379 --> 00:11:16.620 was a small room. famously small tiny and he 00:11:16.620 --> 00:11:19.639 would cram 20 30 musicians into this little room 00:11:19.639 --> 00:11:22.820 violins next to the drums horns next to the guitars 00:11:22.820 --> 00:11:25.539 there was no isolation so you're getting incredible 00:11:25.539 --> 00:11:28.539 microphone bleed the drum mic is picking up the 00:11:28.539 --> 00:11:31.639 guitars the vocal mic is picking up the percussion 00:11:31.639 --> 00:11:34.259 which is the exact opposite of how modern recording 00:11:34.259 --> 00:11:37.779 works yeah today it's all about isolation Separation. 00:11:37.820 --> 00:11:41.080 Getting a clean signal for each instrument. Spector 00:11:41.080 --> 00:11:43.000 wanted the opposite. He wanted the bleed. He 00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:45.299 wanted the air in the room to be completely saturated 00:11:45.299 --> 00:11:48.399 with sound before it even hit a microphone. And 00:11:48.399 --> 00:11:50.919 then the secret sauce. The echo chambers. And 00:11:50.919 --> 00:11:53.000 again, we're not talking about digital reverb 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:55.379 plugins that you just click on a computer. These 00:11:55.379 --> 00:11:58.100 were physical rooms. Oh, yeah. Goldstar had these 00:11:58.100 --> 00:12:01.580 legendary trapezoidal concrete basements. Spector 00:12:01.580 --> 00:12:03.539 would take the audio from the live studio performance, 00:12:03.840 --> 00:12:06.179 pump it down into these concrete rooms through 00:12:06.179 --> 00:12:08.980 massive speakers, record the sound of it bouncing 00:12:08.980 --> 00:12:11.340 off the concrete walls. Which would create this 00:12:11.340 --> 00:12:14.259 huge, muddy, beautiful decay. And then he would 00:12:14.259 --> 00:12:18.580 fold that wet, messy, gorgeous echo back on top 00:12:18.580 --> 00:12:20.539 of the original mix. So you have the blurred 00:12:20.539 --> 00:12:22.700 instruments, the microphone bleed, and this thick 00:12:22.700 --> 00:12:26.320 layer of natural concrete reverb slathered over 00:12:26.320 --> 00:12:29.519 everything. It's impossibly dense. And on top 00:12:29.519 --> 00:12:32.320 of all that, he insisted on recording and mixing 00:12:32.320 --> 00:12:35.559 in mono. Which is such a key point because by 00:12:35.559 --> 00:12:38.379 the early 60s, the world was moving to stereo. 00:12:38.580 --> 00:12:41.519 That was the new exciting technology. Why did 00:12:41.519 --> 00:12:44.990 he fight so hard for mono? Control. 100 % control. 00:12:45.190 --> 00:12:47.429 If you're listening to a record in Scario, you, 00:12:47.610 --> 00:12:50.169 the listener, have a little bit of agency. You 00:12:50.169 --> 00:12:52.690 can sit closer to the left speaker or the right 00:12:52.690 --> 00:12:55.129 speaker. You can perceive the separation of the 00:12:55.129 --> 00:12:57.309 instruments. In mono, there's nowhere to go. 00:12:57.889 --> 00:13:00.789 The producer decides the exact balance of every 00:13:00.789 --> 00:13:03.409 single element. The sound comes out of the speaker 00:13:03.409 --> 00:13:06.789 as a single, unified, indivisible block. You 00:13:06.789 --> 00:13:08.710 hear exactly what Phil Spector wants you to hear 00:13:08.710 --> 00:13:10.769 in the exact way he wants you to hear it. There 00:13:10.769 --> 00:13:12.580 is no other option. It's basically authoritarian 00:13:12.580 --> 00:13:14.960 audio engineering. That is the perfect way to 00:13:14.960 --> 00:13:18.080 put it. And my God, did it work. The output from 00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:22.360 Fela's records from 1962 to 1965 is just an unbelievable 00:13:22.360 --> 00:13:24.620 run of hits. You start with the crystals. And 00:13:24.620 --> 00:13:26.879 right away, with their first big hit, He's a 00:13:26.879 --> 00:13:29.620 Rebel, you see the control in action. Because 00:13:29.620 --> 00:13:31.519 the source material confirms that wasn't actually 00:13:31.519 --> 00:13:33.720 the crystals singing on the record. Not at all. 00:13:34.059 --> 00:13:36.399 Specker was in a rush. He heard another producer 00:13:36.399 --> 00:13:38.480 was about to release a version of the song, and 00:13:38.480 --> 00:13:40.700 he had to beat them to the charts. He was in 00:13:40.700 --> 00:13:45.120 L .A., but the Crystals, the actual group, were 00:13:45.120 --> 00:13:46.919 on the road in New York. So what does he do? 00:13:47.220 --> 00:13:49.519 He doesn't care. He just grabs a local L .A. 00:13:49.539 --> 00:13:51.840 group, Barleen Love and the Blossoms, has them 00:13:51.840 --> 00:13:54.240 sing the track, and he slaps the Crystals on 00:13:54.240 --> 00:13:56.480 the label and releases it. The name of the artist 00:13:56.480 --> 00:13:59.159 didn't matter. The brand was a Phil Spector production. 00:13:59.519 --> 00:14:02.000 The singers were just another instrument, totally 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:04.240 interchangeable parts in his machine. That's 00:14:04.240 --> 00:14:06.240 exactly how he viewed them. And then you get 00:14:06.240 --> 00:14:09.190 this string of classics. Do, Ron, Ron. Then he 00:14:09.190 --> 00:14:12.230 kissed me, and then he finds what he considers 00:14:12.230 --> 00:14:15.490 the crown jewel of his sonic empire, the Ronettes. 00:14:15.769 --> 00:14:17.870 And specifically, their lead singer, Veronica 00:14:17.870 --> 00:14:20.730 Bennett, Ronnie. Her voice just obsessed him. 00:14:20.750 --> 00:14:22.610 It had this perfect blend of girlish innocence 00:14:22.610 --> 00:14:26.309 and raw, streetwise power. He hears her, and 00:14:26.309 --> 00:14:28.230 he thinks, this is it. This is the instrument 00:14:28.230 --> 00:14:30.549 I've been waiting for. And he builds his masterpiece 00:14:30.549 --> 00:14:33.230 around her, Be My Baby. That opening drum beat, 00:14:33.350 --> 00:14:35.269 boom, boom, boom, clap. It's the heartbeat of 00:14:35.269 --> 00:14:39.000 the 1960s, Hal Blaine's drumming. And Brian Wilson 00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:41.480 of the Beach Boys famously called Be My Baby 00:14:41.480 --> 00:14:44.139 the greatest pop record ever made. He said he 00:14:44.139 --> 00:14:46.340 listened to it a thousand times, trying to figure 00:14:46.340 --> 00:14:49.220 out how Spector did it. It's the absolute perfection 00:14:49.220 --> 00:14:51.320 of the Wallace sound formula. He went to number 00:14:51.320 --> 00:14:54.980 two on the charts. And this run of hits solidified 00:14:54.980 --> 00:14:57.759 Spector as not just a guy who made records, but 00:14:57.759 --> 00:15:00.519 as a cultural force. He was changing the very 00:15:00.519 --> 00:15:03.740 sound of popular music. And he reaches the absolute 00:15:03.740 --> 00:15:05.539 commercial peak with the Righteous Brothers. 00:15:05.679 --> 00:15:08.090 You've lost that love and feeling. Phila's record's 00:15:08.090 --> 00:15:10.769 second number one single. But look at the legacy 00:15:10.769 --> 00:15:13.830 of that song. Up until 2019, it was the single 00:15:13.830 --> 00:15:16.389 most played song on American radio and television 00:15:16.389 --> 00:15:20.070 in history. Man, staggering. And at the time, 00:15:20.090 --> 00:15:22.049 it was almost four minutes long, which was considered 00:15:22.049 --> 00:15:24.250 commercial suicide for a pop single. So what 00:15:24.250 --> 00:15:26.649 did Spector do? He lied. He printed the running 00:15:26.649 --> 00:15:29.690 time on the record's label as 3 .05 so that radio 00:15:29.690 --> 00:15:31.629 DJs wouldn't be scared off and would actually 00:15:31.629 --> 00:15:33.909 play it. It's just constant manipulation. He 00:15:33.909 --> 00:15:35.769 was manipulating the singers, the musicians, 00:15:36.009 --> 00:15:39.309 the DJs, the listeners, even time itself. And 00:15:39.309 --> 00:15:42.070 we can't talk about this golden era without mentioning 00:15:42.070 --> 00:15:44.610 the Christmas album, A Christmas Gift for You 00:15:44.610 --> 00:15:47.529 from Phyllis Records. Because today, we listen 00:15:47.529 --> 00:15:49.809 to Darlene Love singing Christmas, Baby Please 00:15:49.809 --> 00:15:53.049 Come Home, and it feels absolutely timeless. 00:15:53.639 --> 00:15:55.919 It's a holiday staple. But the release timing 00:15:55.919 --> 00:15:58.600 was one of the most tragic coincidences in music 00:15:58.600 --> 00:16:01.519 history. It was released on November 20th, 1963. 00:16:02.100 --> 00:16:05.259 The day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Talk 00:16:05.259 --> 00:16:06.840 about the air getting sucked out of the room. 00:16:06.879 --> 00:16:09.419 The entire nation was in mourning. Absolutely 00:16:09.419 --> 00:16:12.139 no one was in the mood to hear these bombastic, 00:16:12.159 --> 00:16:15.360 joyous, wall of sound. Christmas carols. The 00:16:15.360 --> 00:16:17.659 album completely tanked. It was a total commercial 00:16:17.659 --> 00:16:20.259 failure. It took decades for it to be reevaluated 00:16:20.259 --> 00:16:22.679 and recognized as the masterpiece it is. But 00:16:22.679 --> 00:16:25.179 for Spector, who believed he had the Midas touch, 00:16:25.379 --> 00:16:27.259 these little failures, these moments where he 00:16:27.259 --> 00:16:29.580 couldn't control the world, they started to chip 00:16:29.580 --> 00:16:31.820 away at his armor. And you see his obsession 00:16:31.820 --> 00:16:34.200 with control in this other weird little detail 00:16:34.200 --> 00:16:37.679 from that era, the B -sides of his records. I 00:16:37.679 --> 00:16:40.019 love this because it shows his complete disdain 00:16:40.019 --> 00:16:42.580 for the rules of the industry. He was basically 00:16:42.580 --> 00:16:46.399 trolling the DJs. He was terrified that a disc 00:16:46.399 --> 00:16:48.659 jockey might accidentally flip the record over 00:16:48.659 --> 00:16:50.799 and play the B side, and maybe that would become 00:16:50.799 --> 00:16:52.720 the hit by mistake and he would lose control 00:16:52.720 --> 00:16:56.450 of the narrative. So he made the B sides. Unlistenable 00:16:56.450 --> 00:16:58.970 on purpose. He recorded intentional garbage. 00:16:59.049 --> 00:17:01.509 Just throw away instrumental tracks that went 00:17:01.509 --> 00:17:04.250 nowhere. He'd give them joke titles, too. There's 00:17:04.250 --> 00:17:06.710 one called Dr. Kaplan's Office. Named after his 00:17:06.710 --> 00:17:10.230 psychiatrist. Exactly. He made the B -sides unplayable 00:17:10.230 --> 00:17:13.329 to force everyone to focus only on his art, the 00:17:13.329 --> 00:17:16.109 A -side. It's just control, control, control 00:17:16.109 --> 00:17:19.200 at every level. But you can only manipulate reality 00:17:19.200 --> 00:17:22.039 for so long before reality pushes back. And the 00:17:22.039 --> 00:17:25.000 big pushback came in 1966. The record was River 00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:26.859 Deep Mountain High. This is the pivot point. 00:17:26.940 --> 00:17:28.759 This is the moment the whole simulation breaks 00:17:28.759 --> 00:17:31.960 down for him. He signs Ike and Tina Turner. Or 00:17:31.960 --> 00:17:34.059 really since Tina. He didn't care about Ike at 00:17:34.059 --> 00:17:36.599 all. He famously paid Ike something like $20 00:17:36.599 --> 00:17:39.119 ,000 just to stay out of the studio during the 00:17:39.119 --> 00:17:41.680 sessions. He just wanted Tina's voice. He wanted 00:17:41.680 --> 00:17:44.140 to build the ultimate monument to himself to 00:17:44.140 --> 00:17:47.059 the wall of sound using her incredible voice 00:17:47.059 --> 00:17:50.650 as the final perfect instrument. and he sweats 00:17:50.650 --> 00:17:53.289 blood over this track he works on it for weeks 00:17:53.289 --> 00:17:56.450 he uses a massive orchestra he considers it his 00:17:56.450 --> 00:17:59.029 magnum opus the greatest thing he has ever created 00:17:59.029 --> 00:18:02.529 he releases it fully expecting the world to just 00:18:02.529 --> 00:18:06.049 bow down in awe and in the united states It charts 00:18:06.049 --> 00:18:09.029 at number 88. 88. That's not a flop. That's a 00:18:09.029 --> 00:18:11.430 public rejection. It shattered him. It did well 00:18:11.430 --> 00:18:14.029 in the UK. It went to number three there. But 00:18:14.029 --> 00:18:16.930 in America, the culture had moved on. The Beatles 00:18:16.930 --> 00:18:19.650 were getting experimental. Bob Dylan had gone 00:18:19.650 --> 00:18:22.849 electric. The Motown sound was slick and sophisticated. 00:18:23.930 --> 00:18:26.150 Spectre's melodramatic teenage symphonies were 00:18:26.150 --> 00:18:28.730 starting to sound, well, a little dated. And 00:18:28.730 --> 00:18:31.390 because his entire ego, his entire identity was 00:18:31.390 --> 00:18:33.569 constructed around this idea of being the infallible 00:18:33.569 --> 00:18:36.079 genius who controlled the charts, This failure 00:18:36.079 --> 00:18:38.339 didn't just make him sad or disappointed, it 00:18:38.339 --> 00:18:40.400 made him retreat. He basically takes his ball 00:18:40.400 --> 00:18:42.900 and goes home. He shuts down Philly's records. 00:18:43.039 --> 00:18:46.019 He becomes a recluse. He withdraws into his mansion 00:18:46.019 --> 00:18:48.519 and starts getting weird. I mean, weirder. We 00:18:48.519 --> 00:18:51.480 see him pop up in a cameo in the 1969 movie Easy 00:18:51.480 --> 00:18:54.039 Rider playing a drug dealer, which feels a little 00:18:54.039 --> 00:18:56.299 on the nose in retrospect. But really, for a 00:18:56.299 --> 00:18:58.940 few years, he's in a self -imposed exile. Until 00:18:58.940 --> 00:19:01.259 the biggest man in the world realizes they have 00:19:01.259 --> 00:19:04.059 a problem so big that only Phil Spector can solve 00:19:04.059 --> 00:19:08.980 it. The Beatles. 1970. This is the infamous let 00:19:08.980 --> 00:19:12.339 it be disaster. It was an absolute mess. The 00:19:12.339 --> 00:19:14.579 original get back sessions were just hours and 00:19:14.579 --> 00:19:17.579 hours of tape of the band arguing, playing half 00:19:17.579 --> 00:19:20.539 finished songs with terrible vibes. The band 00:19:20.539 --> 00:19:22.339 had essentially given up and abandoned the whole 00:19:22.339 --> 00:19:24.720 project. So Alan Klein, their manager at the 00:19:24.720 --> 00:19:27.839 time, brings Spector over to England, dumps these 00:19:27.839 --> 00:19:30.000 tapes in his lap and basically says, can you 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:32.259 make an album out of this junk? And this is one 00:19:32.259 --> 00:19:34.099 of the most polarizing moments in rock history, 00:19:34.240 --> 00:19:41.400 because for half the world. Specifically, he 00:19:41.400 --> 00:19:43.519 desecrated it for Paul McCartney. Oh, Paul was 00:19:43.519 --> 00:19:45.539 infuriated. You listen to a song like The Long 00:19:45.539 --> 00:19:48.500 and Winding Road. Paul wrote a simple, beautiful, 00:19:48.720 --> 00:19:51.690 sparse piano ballad. Spector gets his hands on 00:19:51.690 --> 00:19:54.450 it. And what does he do? He specterizes it. He 00:19:54.450 --> 00:19:56.990 adds a massive string orchestra. He adds a heavenly 00:19:56.990 --> 00:20:00.150 choir. He adds harps. He slathers it in the wall 00:20:00.150 --> 00:20:02.529 of sound. McCartney hated it. He felt it was 00:20:02.529 --> 00:20:06.250 pure schmaltz. But John Lennon. Lennon loved 00:20:06.250 --> 00:20:09.349 it. Lennon publicly defended him. He famously 00:20:09.349 --> 00:20:12.069 said Spector took the shittiest load of badly 00:20:12.069 --> 00:20:14.549 recorded shit and made it into something listenable. 00:20:14.670 --> 00:20:17.190 And this act aligned Spector firmly with the 00:20:17.190 --> 00:20:19.289 Lennon and Harrison camp in the post -Beatle 00:20:19.289 --> 00:20:21.869 Civil War. Which leads directly to his work on 00:20:21.869 --> 00:20:24.089 George Harrison's solo masterpiece, All Things 00:20:24.089 --> 00:20:27.789 Must Pass. My sweet lord. That is pure, unadulterated 00:20:27.789 --> 00:20:30.089 wall of sound. It's lush, it's spiritual, it's 00:20:30.089 --> 00:20:31.849 absolute massive. And he produces linen solo 00:20:31.849 --> 00:20:34.869 stuff. Like, imagine. But while the music was 00:20:34.869 --> 00:20:37.029 still succeeding, Spector's personal behavior 00:20:37.029 --> 00:20:40.700 in the studio was deteriorating. The alcohol 00:20:40.700 --> 00:20:43.279 consumption was just skyrocketing and the guns 00:20:43.279 --> 00:20:45.180 started to come out. This is the era of the gun. 00:20:45.299 --> 00:20:47.259 It stops being a quirky rumor and starts being 00:20:47.259 --> 00:20:49.839 a daily occupational hazard for anyone working 00:20:49.839 --> 00:20:52.380 with him. There's the famous story from the sessions 00:20:52.380 --> 00:20:55.619 for John Lennon's rock and roll album in 1973. 00:20:56.480 --> 00:20:59.299 The sessions were already chaotic, fueled by 00:20:59.299 --> 00:21:02.339 drugs and alcohol. Spector shows up one day dressed 00:21:02.339 --> 00:21:04.579 as a surgeon, another day as a karate master. 00:21:04.980 --> 00:21:07.640 He's drinking brandy constantly. And then he 00:21:07.640 --> 00:21:10.250 pulls out a handgun. and he fires it into the 00:21:10.250 --> 00:21:13.450 ceiling of the control room right next to john 00:21:13.450 --> 00:21:16.839 lennon's head And Lennon, in his typical dry 00:21:16.839 --> 00:21:18.619 way, apparently yelled, Phil, if you're going 00:21:18.619 --> 00:21:20.759 to kill me, kill me. But don't fuck with my ears. 00:21:20.940 --> 00:21:23.180 I need those. It's a great line, but think about 00:21:23.180 --> 00:21:26.019 the reality of that situation. The producer is 00:21:26.019 --> 00:21:29.180 firing a live weapon in a soundproof room. This 00:21:29.180 --> 00:21:31.559 isn't just eccentricity anymore. This is a full 00:21:31.559 --> 00:21:34.059 -blown mental health crisis playing out in public. 00:21:34.339 --> 00:21:36.980 And then, as if that's not enough, he steals 00:21:36.980 --> 00:21:38.940 the master tapes from the session. He literally 00:21:38.940 --> 00:21:41.660 holds them hostage until Capitol Records pays 00:21:41.660 --> 00:21:44.109 him a hefty ransom for their return. It's a complete 00:21:44.109 --> 00:21:46.410 breakdown of all professional norms. But then 00:21:46.410 --> 00:21:49.710 in 1974, the breakdown becomes brutally physical. 00:21:50.009 --> 00:21:53.230 The car crash. Yeah. In Hollywood, he has a terrible 00:21:53.230 --> 00:21:56.349 accident. He's not wearing a seatbelt and he's 00:21:56.349 --> 00:21:58.609 thrown through the windshield of his car. The 00:21:58.609 --> 00:22:01.049 injuries are horrific. Something like 300 stitches 00:22:01.049 --> 00:22:04.150 in his face, 400 in the back of his head. And 00:22:04.150 --> 00:22:06.269 the source material really suggests that this 00:22:06.269 --> 00:22:08.089 is the moment the Phil Spector character takes 00:22:08.089 --> 00:22:11.650 over completely. The mask becomes the face. The 00:22:11.650 --> 00:22:14.210 head injuries were extremely serious. And to 00:22:14.210 --> 00:22:16.750 cover the scars, he starts wearing these wigs, 00:22:16.809 --> 00:22:20.630 these massive, bizarre, outlandish wigs. But 00:22:20.630 --> 00:22:22.470 they become more than a covering. They become 00:22:22.470 --> 00:22:24.829 part of the armor. He's hiding behind the hair, 00:22:24.990 --> 00:22:27.170 hiding behind the dark glasses, hiding behind 00:22:27.170 --> 00:22:29.269 the walls of his mansion. And the music starts 00:22:29.269 --> 00:22:31.769 to suffer for it. He tries to launch a new label, 00:22:31.849 --> 00:22:34.160 Warner Spector, but it goes nowhere. He produces 00:22:34.160 --> 00:22:36.500 an album for Leonard Cohen, Death of a Lady's 00:22:36.500 --> 00:22:39.740 Man. And he essentially holds Cohen hostage during 00:22:39.740 --> 00:22:42.339 the process. He locks him out of the mixing sessions. 00:22:42.599 --> 00:22:44.380 Cohen couldn't even hear his own songs being 00:22:44.380 --> 00:22:47.880 mixed. Nope. Spector reportedly had armed bodyguards 00:22:47.880 --> 00:22:50.579 at the studio door to keep him out. Cohen later 00:22:50.579 --> 00:22:53.759 called the result grotesque, but also semi -virtuous. 00:22:54.480 --> 00:22:56.700 He was completely baffled by it. It's like he 00:22:56.700 --> 00:22:58.559 was trying to prove that he didn't need the artist 00:22:58.559 --> 00:23:01.140 at all anymore. The producer was the only one 00:23:01.140 --> 00:23:04.329 who mattered. Which leads to maybe the strangest 00:23:04.329 --> 00:23:07.089 pairing of all, the Ramones. End of the century, 00:23:07.250 --> 00:23:11.329 1979. Punk rock meets the wall of sound. It's 00:23:11.329 --> 00:23:13.789 oil and water. The Ramones were all about speed, 00:23:13.970 --> 00:23:17.970 efficiency, three chords, no frills. Spectre 00:23:17.970 --> 00:23:21.970 was the king of tedious, layered, obsessive perfectionism. 00:23:21.990 --> 00:23:24.859 And again, the guns came out. Dee Ramone claimed 00:23:24.859 --> 00:23:27.279 in his book that Spector pulled a gun on him 00:23:27.279 --> 00:23:29.099 when he tried to leave the mansion one night, 00:23:29.200 --> 00:23:31.299 pointed it right at his chest and said, you're 00:23:31.299 --> 00:23:33.619 not going anywhere. He allegedly forced Johnny 00:23:33.619 --> 00:23:36.160 Ramone to play the opening chord of Rock and 00:23:36.160 --> 00:23:38.339 Roll High School over and over and over again 00:23:38.339 --> 00:23:41.220 for eight straight hours until he got the exact 00:23:41.220 --> 00:23:43.759 sound he wanted. It's that same control impulse 00:23:43.759 --> 00:23:45.740 again. He's treating the Ramones like he treated 00:23:45.740 --> 00:23:47.660 the Wrecking Crew. But these are New York punk 00:23:47.660 --> 00:23:49.940 rockers. They don't take orders like that. The 00:23:49.940 --> 00:23:52.630 final album is... It's a fascinating lesson. 00:23:52.849 --> 00:23:55.170 And strangely enough, it became the Ramones' 00:23:55.289 --> 00:23:57.710 highest charting record. But the cost was high. 00:23:58.029 --> 00:24:00.930 It solidified Spector's reputation as a talented, 00:24:01.089 --> 00:24:04.869 dangerous man to work with. And after that, he 00:24:04.869 --> 00:24:07.490 basically disappears for almost 20 years. But 00:24:07.490 --> 00:24:09.710 while the recording studios were quiet, the house 00:24:09.710 --> 00:24:12.970 was not. And this is where we have to pivot to 00:24:12.970 --> 00:24:15.730 the victims of his control. because while he 00:24:15.730 --> 00:24:18.250 was waving guns at John Lennon and D .D. Ramone, 00:24:18.410 --> 00:24:21.309 he was doing much, much worse to the people he 00:24:21.309 --> 00:24:23.009 claimed to love. I have to talk about Ronnie. 00:24:23.109 --> 00:24:25.730 Ronnie Bennett, the voice of Be My Baby. They 00:24:25.730 --> 00:24:29.329 finally married in 1968. And her memoir, also 00:24:29.329 --> 00:24:32.250 called Be My Baby, it reads like a gothic horror 00:24:32.250 --> 00:24:34.670 novel. It's absolutely terrifying. He moved her 00:24:34.670 --> 00:24:36.589 into his 23 -room mansion in Beverly Hills and 00:24:36.589 --> 00:24:38.309 then systematically turned it into a prison. 00:24:38.470 --> 00:24:41.210 He had barbed wire fences installed. He had guard 00:24:41.210 --> 00:24:43.990 dogs patrolling the grounds. He confiscated her. 00:24:44.009 --> 00:24:46.089 shoes so she couldn't run outside he completely 00:24:46.089 --> 00:24:48.430 isolated her from her family from her friends 00:24:48.430 --> 00:24:50.769 he forbid her from performing and then there 00:24:50.769 --> 00:24:53.710 was the coffin the glass coffin he bought a gold 00:24:53.710 --> 00:24:56.250 coffin with a glass top and kept it in the basement 00:24:56.250 --> 00:25:00.109 and he told her explicitly if you ever try to 00:25:00.109 --> 00:25:02.390 leave me i will kill you and display your body 00:25:02.390 --> 00:25:04.390 in this coffin that's not a bad marriage that 00:25:04.390 --> 00:25:06.589 is a hostage situation she eventually escaped 00:25:06.589 --> 00:25:09.640 in 1972 She had to do it with the help of her 00:25:09.640 --> 00:25:11.839 mother. She literally broke out of the house 00:25:11.839 --> 00:25:15.519 barefoot and ran for her life. In the divorce 00:25:15.519 --> 00:25:18.279 settlement, this part is just heartbreaking. 00:25:18.599 --> 00:25:21.359 He threatened to hire a hitman to kill her unless 00:25:21.359 --> 00:25:23.480 she signed away all of her future record earnings. 00:25:23.680 --> 00:25:26.299 So she gave up millions of dollars just to get 00:25:26.299 --> 00:25:28.420 away from him alive. She had to buy her own freedom. 00:25:28.519 --> 00:25:30.119 And it wasn't just Ronnie. They adopted three 00:25:30.119 --> 00:25:33.559 children, Dante, Louie, and Gary. Years later, 00:25:33.680 --> 00:25:36.099 his adopted son Dante came forward with his own 00:25:36.099 --> 00:25:38.519 stories. He described being locked in his room 00:25:38.519 --> 00:25:41.579 for days at a time, being blindfolded. This objected 00:25:41.579 --> 00:25:44.220 to bizarre, ritualistic abuse. He called mansion 00:25:44.220 --> 00:25:46.859 a concentration camp. It paints this horrifying 00:25:46.859 --> 00:25:50.099 picture of a man who needed absolute dominion 00:25:50.099 --> 00:25:53.079 over every living thing in his orbit. If he couldn't 00:25:53.079 --> 00:25:55.160 control the public's taste in music anymore, 00:25:55.400 --> 00:25:57.940 he would control his wife and his children with 00:25:57.940 --> 00:26:00.460 absolute unimaginable terror. And he got away 00:26:00.460 --> 00:26:02.380 with it for decades. That's the thing that's 00:26:02.380 --> 00:26:04.579 so chilling. He was rich, he was famous, he was 00:26:04.579 --> 00:26:06.720 a genius. So people looked the other way. They 00:26:06.720 --> 00:26:08.839 just said, oh, that's just Phil being Phil. He 00:26:08.839 --> 00:26:11.420 called himself borderline insane in a deposition 00:26:11.420 --> 00:26:14.220 years later. He admitted he had devils inside 00:26:14.220 --> 00:26:17.240 him. But he was still walking free, still living 00:26:17.240 --> 00:26:20.579 in his bizarre mansion, the Pyrenees Castle up 00:26:20.579 --> 00:26:24.000 in Alhambra, a literal castle on a hill looking 00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:26.839 down on everyone else. Until the night of February 00:26:26.839 --> 00:26:31.000 3, 2003. The night the music and his freedom 00:26:31.000 --> 00:26:33.950 stopped for good. and the night lana clarkson's 00:26:33.950 --> 00:26:36.869 life ended lana clarkson was a 40 year old actress 00:26:36.869 --> 00:26:38.890 she'd had some success in the 80s she was the 00:26:38.890 --> 00:26:41.289 star of roger corman's cult film barbarian queen 00:26:41.289 --> 00:26:44.329 but by 2003 her career had stalled and she was 00:26:44.329 --> 00:26:46.269 working as a hostess at the house of blues in 00:26:46.269 --> 00:26:49.009 west hollywood specter comes in that night he's 00:26:49.009 --> 00:26:51.549 drinking he meets her and at the end of the night 00:26:51.549 --> 00:26:54.170 he persuades her to come back to the castle for 00:26:54.170 --> 00:26:57.269 one last drink a truly fateful decision they 00:26:57.269 --> 00:27:01.500 get to the castle and around 5 a .m A single 00:27:01.500 --> 00:27:04.339 gunshot rings out. The physical evidence is crucial 00:27:04.339 --> 00:27:07.799 here. Lana Clarkson was found dead, slumped in 00:27:07.799 --> 00:27:10.200 a chair in the foyer of the mansion. She had 00:27:10.200 --> 00:27:12.819 a single gunshot wound to the mouth. And Spector 00:27:12.819 --> 00:27:15.640 is there, of course. But the smoking gun almost 00:27:15.640 --> 00:27:18.740 literally was the key witness. Spector's driver, 00:27:18.920 --> 00:27:21.839 Adriano D'Souza. He was waiting outside in the 00:27:21.839 --> 00:27:24.579 limousine. And what did he see and hear? He testified 00:27:24.579 --> 00:27:26.819 that Spector came out the back door with a gun 00:27:26.819 --> 00:27:29.339 in his hand and said five words that would ultimately 00:27:29.339 --> 00:27:32.210 seal his fate. I think I killed somebody. I think 00:27:32.210 --> 00:27:34.190 I killed somebody. It is very, very hard to walk 00:27:34.190 --> 00:27:37.230 that statement back. But Spector tried. Or rather, 00:27:37.369 --> 00:27:39.849 his incredibly high -priced legal team tried. 00:27:40.529 --> 00:27:43.150 They immediately began spinning a story that 00:27:43.150 --> 00:27:44.970 Lana Clarkson was depressed about her career, 00:27:45.109 --> 00:27:47.230 that she was unstable, and that she had grabbed 00:27:47.230 --> 00:27:49.990 the gun and shot herself. An accidental suicide. 00:27:50.369 --> 00:27:52.769 Spector even gave an interview to Esquire magazine 00:27:52.769 --> 00:27:55.769 where he used the revolting phrase that she kissed 00:27:55.769 --> 00:27:58.569 the gun. It's the ultimate act of control, isn't 00:27:58.569 --> 00:28:01.150 it? Trying to rewrite the narrative of a woman's 00:28:01.150 --> 00:28:04.089 violent death to protect your own ego. The legal 00:28:04.089 --> 00:28:06.569 battle that followed was a total circus. The 00:28:06.569 --> 00:28:09.849 first trial in 2007 was televised. It was a spectacle. 00:28:10.430 --> 00:28:12.390 Spectre would show up in court every day wearing 00:28:12.390 --> 00:28:15.730 a different, more outlandish wig, a huge afro 00:28:15.730 --> 00:28:18.869 one day, a Beatles -style mop top the next. It 00:28:18.869 --> 00:28:20.990 felt like sick performance art. And it almost 00:28:20.990 --> 00:28:24.190 worked. That first trial resulted in a mistrial. 00:28:24.700 --> 00:28:27.420 The jury was hung 10 to 2 in favor of conviction, 00:28:27.660 --> 00:28:29.700 but they couldn't get a unanimous verdict. He 00:28:29.700 --> 00:28:32.039 came that close to walking free. He almost did. 00:28:32.480 --> 00:28:34.920 But the state decided to try him again in 2008. 00:28:35.740 --> 00:28:37.980 This time, there were no cameras in the courtroom. 00:28:38.099 --> 00:28:40.119 It was just about the facts. And the prosecution 00:28:40.119 --> 00:28:42.259 brought in a string of other women who testified 00:28:42.259 --> 00:28:44.380 that Phil Spector had a clear pattern of behavior, 00:28:44.700 --> 00:28:46.539 pulling guns on them when they tried to leave 00:28:46.539 --> 00:28:48.519 his home. And that pattern was just too much 00:28:48.519 --> 00:28:51.500 for the second jury to ignore the verdict. Guilty. 00:28:52.069 --> 00:28:54.410 Second -degree murder, plus a charge for using 00:28:54.410 --> 00:28:56.650 a firearm in the commission of a crime. He was 00:28:56.650 --> 00:28:59.349 sentenced to 19 years to life in prison. So the 00:28:59.349 --> 00:29:02.009 man who built the legendary Wall of Sound ends 00:29:02.009 --> 00:29:04.730 his life behind four walls of concrete. He was 00:29:04.730 --> 00:29:06.809 sent to the California Healthcare Facility, which 00:29:06.809 --> 00:29:08.990 is a prison for inmates with long -term medical 00:29:08.990 --> 00:29:11.750 needs. And the decline was rapid and shocking. 00:29:11.930 --> 00:29:15.410 You look at the mugshots from 2013 -2014. He's 00:29:15.410 --> 00:29:17.369 completely unrecognizable. The wigs are gone. 00:29:17.490 --> 00:29:20.430 He's bald, frail. And he just looks terrified. 00:29:20.650 --> 00:29:23.529 And the final irony of his life is just, it's 00:29:23.529 --> 00:29:26.569 so heavy. The man who gave the world the loudest, 00:29:26.569 --> 00:29:28.890 most dense, most powerful voice in pop music 00:29:28.890 --> 00:29:32.349 lost his own voice. Laryngeal papillomatosis. 00:29:32.670 --> 00:29:34.769 It's a disease that causes tumors to grow on 00:29:34.769 --> 00:29:36.950 the larynx. He lost the ability to speak in 2014. 00:29:37.289 --> 00:29:39.329 He spent the last six or seven years of his life 00:29:39.329 --> 00:29:41.849 in complete silence. And then the final blow, 00:29:41.990 --> 00:29:45.210 the pandemic. In December of 2020, he contracted 00:29:45.210 --> 00:29:47.630 COVID -19. He died from complications of the 00:29:47.630 --> 00:29:50.609 disease on January 16, 2021. He was 81 years 00:29:50.609 --> 00:29:53.869 old. Dying in a prison hospital alone, in silence, 00:29:54.170 --> 00:29:57.369 there's no grandeur to it. It's a pathetic, miserable 00:29:57.369 --> 00:30:01.109 end. Which brings us to the hard job, the job 00:30:01.109 --> 00:30:03.450 we promised to do at the start of this. We have 00:30:03.450 --> 00:30:05.450 to look at the legacy. Because you can't tell 00:30:05.450 --> 00:30:07.690 the story of rock and roll without Phil Spector, 00:30:07.750 --> 00:30:10.170 but you also can't tell the story of Phil Spector 00:30:10.170 --> 00:30:12.980 without the murder of Lana Clarkson. It is the 00:30:12.980 --> 00:30:15.920 ultimate dilemma. Musically, his impact is, it's 00:30:15.920 --> 00:30:18.920 just incalculable. He didn't just produce songs. 00:30:19.220 --> 00:30:22.180 He redefined what a producer was. Before him, 00:30:22.279 --> 00:30:24.940 producers were mostly documentarians. Their job 00:30:24.940 --> 00:30:26.859 was just to capture the sound of the band playing. 00:30:27.019 --> 00:30:29.859 Spector made the producer the star, the artist, 00:30:30.039 --> 00:30:33.119 the auteur. The band was just paint. He was the 00:30:33.119 --> 00:30:35.440 painter. Exactly. Without Phil Spector, you don't 00:30:35.440 --> 00:30:37.400 get Brian Wilson getting obsessed and making 00:30:37.400 --> 00:30:39.839 pet sounds. You probably don't get Bruce Springsteen 00:30:39.839 --> 00:30:41.960 making Born to Run with its own version of a 00:30:41.960 --> 00:30:44.460 wall of sound. You don't get the whole shoegaze 00:30:44.460 --> 00:30:48.400 genre bands like My Bloody Valentine or the Jesus 00:30:48.400 --> 00:30:51.000 and Mary Chain who took that idea of a dense 00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:53.279 wall of noise and ran with it. His influence 00:30:53.279 --> 00:30:55.400 is everywhere. He's in the Rock and Roll Hall 00:30:55.400 --> 00:30:58.680 of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, a Grammy 00:30:58.680 --> 00:31:02.480 Trustees Award winner. He is. But when he died, 00:31:02.640 --> 00:31:05.839 the reaction from the world was, understandably, 00:31:05.920 --> 00:31:09.200 very complicated. Ronnie Spector, his ex -wife, 00:31:09.440 --> 00:31:11.700 released a statement that I think really sums 00:31:11.700 --> 00:31:13.900 it up perfectly. She said he was a brilliant 00:31:13.900 --> 00:31:16.799 producer, but a lousy husband. That might be 00:31:16.799 --> 00:31:19.500 the understatement of the century. And his biographer, 00:31:19.640 --> 00:31:22.339 Mick Brown, who wrote this definitive book about 00:31:22.339 --> 00:31:24.900 him, said we have to acknowledge the musical 00:31:24.900 --> 00:31:28.640 genius and the scaly night -crawling pod as one 00:31:28.640 --> 00:31:30.660 and the same. You can't separate them because 00:31:30.660 --> 00:31:33.000 they grew from the exact same soil. And that's 00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:34.559 the thought I really want to leave our listeners 00:31:34.559 --> 00:31:36.599 with today. We spent a lot of time talking about 00:31:36.599 --> 00:31:39.339 the wall of sound. It was dense. It was impenetrable. 00:31:39.460 --> 00:31:42.319 It was totally controlling. Every single sonic 00:31:42.319 --> 00:31:45.500 frequency was filled so that no silence, no outside 00:31:45.500 --> 00:31:47.660 air could get in. It was a fortress of sound. 00:31:47.819 --> 00:31:50.660 All a fortress. Phil Spector treated the recording 00:31:50.660 --> 00:31:53.440 studio as an instrument to control every single 00:31:53.440 --> 00:31:56.059 detail of his environment. And you have to wonder, 00:31:56.240 --> 00:31:58.819 was that wall really just a musical triumph? 00:31:59.319 --> 00:32:01.460 Or was it a psychological fortress that he was 00:32:01.460 --> 00:32:03.339 building to keep the world and maybe his own 00:32:03.339 --> 00:32:06.839 demons out? And ultimately, did that same obsessive 00:32:06.839 --> 00:32:09.279 need for absolute control, that wall he built 00:32:09.279 --> 00:32:11.759 around himself, is that what turned into the 00:32:11.759 --> 00:32:13.940 very prison that he eventually died in? A prison 00:32:13.940 --> 00:32:16.460 of sound that became a prison of concrete. It's 00:32:16.460 --> 00:32:18.519 a profound and horrifying tragedy of his own 00:32:18.519 --> 00:32:18.759 making.