Harvey Phillip Spector: famous to infamous in a flash

By Jena Redwanski


Born to a Jewish family in the Bronx, New York, Harvey Phillip Spector, better known as Phil Spector has been very well known since 1958. He learned to play the guitar when he moved to Los Angeles, California a few short years after his father committed suicide in 1949. 

While he was still in high school at Fairfax, Phil and three of his classmates came together to form The Teddy Bears. While a part of the band, Phil won over the confidence of Stan Ross, who co-owned Gold Star Studios. 

A few years later, in 1958, The Teddy Bears had finally raised the money that they had needed to record for two hours at Gold Star. The band then signed with Era Records and released their first hit, “To Know Him is to Love Him”, which went straight to the #1 spot on Billboard’s Top 100. 

The band then signed on to the Imperial Records label where their first release only made it to #91 on the charts. The band finally broke up a year later in 1959.

After The Teddy Bears broke up, Phil’s career took a much needed turn. He no longer performed songs, but wrote and produced them for various artists. While previously recording for The Teddy Bears, he met Lester Sill who was a mentor to Leiber and Stoller, two of the greatest songwriters in the history of rock and roll. 

When 1960 rolled around, Sill talked Leiber and Stoller into letting Spector work with the two songwriters as an apprentice. 

Spector helped Leiber and Stoller write songs for artists such as Ben E. King and the Drifters before creating Philles Records with Lester Sill in 1961. They topped the charts on more than one occasion. 

Spector is also famous for the Wall of Sound technique which used orchestrated instruments as well as more modern instruments such as electric and acoustic guitars. When all of the instruments were played together in a small studio, the effect was a layered sound, therefore signifying the Wall of Sound. 

Despite his excellent career which came along with fame and fortune, Spector’s career took another turn in the 1960‘s, this time for the worse. Spector became infamous for his eccentric attitude and behavior. 

Ronnie Spector, former wife of Phil, has spoken about a time in which Phil took her to the basement to show her a gold coffin with a glass case over it. 

Ronnie claims that Phil told her he would kill her and show her off to anyone who would come over if she ever left him. She finally divorced Spector in 1972 after many years of him locking her inside their home and hiding shoes so she wouldn’t walk outside. 

I believe it was so easy for her to do so at the time because their son claimed that Phil became a hermit in his own room, using a pot in the corner as a toilet. 

Three other counts of violence include detonating a firearm while recording with John Lennon, pointing a gun at Leonard Cohen’s head and forcing Dee Dee Ramone to play the bass guitar to his specifications while holding her at gunpoint.

Phil Spector is now on trial for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson. Spector allegedly shot the actress after she refused to go home with him, and then decided to go with him so that they could have a drink or two. Spector’s chauffeur, Adriana De Souza, testified against Spector. 

Souza claims that he was sitting outside the home where Lana Clarkson was shot when Spector came out saying “I think I killed somebody.”. The trial became public in March of 2007 and continues to this day.

more articles by Jena Redwanski