LOS ANGELES (AP) – Phil Spector was seen as a man with two different characters: the music producer was considered a rock ‘n’ roll genius who elevated the genre with his “Wall of Sound” style in the 1960s and created hits for several big Beatles names in Tina Turner.
But while Spector left his mark as a revolutionary music producer, stories of him waving guns at recording artists and sentencing guilty of murder overshadowed his art.
California state prison officials said Spector died Saturday at age 81 for natural causes in a hospital. He was convicted of killing actress Lana Clarkson in 2003 at his castle-like mansion on the outskirts of Los Angeles. After a trial in 2009, he was sentenced to 19 years in life imprisonment.
Reaction to Spector’s death resurrected some mixed feelings about his life and legacy.
Some praised his early contributions to rock music, while others struggled to forgive his volatile past.
Beach Boys musician Al Jardine said it would be like that “It’s good to remember him just for his songs and production talent.” He said The Ronettes ’song“ Be My Baby, ”which was produced and co-written by Spector, inspired his brother Brian Wilson.
Stevie Van Zandt of Bruce Springsteen’s E Spring Band called Spector an “hopelessly conflicted genius.”
“It was the ultimate example that art was always better than the artist,” Zandt said Twitter. He added that Spector “made some of the best records in history based on the salvation of love while still being able to give or receive love all his life.”
Meanwhile, the host of “The Price Is Right,” Drew Carey, targeted Spector, calling him an “abusive killer and maniac.”
“I wish I had received the mental health help I needed so clearly, but it didn’t,” the comic said. social media. “And so, instead of (asterisk) just (asterisk) throwing guns at people in anger or for fun, he killed one of them. Good ear for music, I’ll give it to you.”
Spector’s ex-wife, Ronnie Spector, remembered him Sunday as a “brilliant producer, but a lousy husband.” She was the singer of the Ronettes.
“Unfortunately, Phil was unable to live and operate outside the recording studio,” he wrote on Instagram. “Darkness set in, many lives were damaged. I still smile every time I hear the music we’ve done together, and I always will. Music will be forever. ”
But Darlene Love, who sang some of Spector’s hits from “He’s a Rebel” and “He’s Sure the Boy I Love,” took a different approach despite her troubled relationship with the producer. He felt sad after learning of Spector’s death from his son.
“He was sad about what Spector did, the wonderful music he created, and he spent about 20 years of his life in prison,” said Love, who admitted that Spector tried to “control my talent.” during his singing career. He said Spector sometimes had a dangerous temper, but tried to remember the positive.
“I hope people not only remember the reason he spent those years in prison, but more or less what he did for rock‘ n ’roll,” he continued. “It changed the sound of rock ‘n’ roll. That’s what made me sad. “
Spector was hailed as a visionary for channeling Wagnerian ambition into the three-minute song, creating the “Wall of Sound” in the 1960s that fused animated vocal harmonies with lavish orchestral arrangements to produce pop monuments like “Da Doo Ron Ron ”.
Bruce Springsteen and Wilson openly replicated his grandiose recording techniques and open-eyed romance, and John Lennon called him “the greatest record producer in history.”
But the multiple stories of Spector waving guns at the recording of artists in the studio and threatening women would haunt him again after Clarkson’s death.
Clarkson, star of “Barbarian Queen” and other B-movies, was found shot in the lobby of Spector’s mansion in the hills overlooking the Alhambra, a modest suburban city on the outskirts of Los Angeles.
Until the actress’ death, which Spector claimed was an “accidental suicide,” few residents even knew the mansion belonged to the sole producer, who spent the remaining years in a prison hospital in the is from Stockton.
Spector became a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989. But eventually, his recording artists began to stop working with him and musical styles took over.
“It self-destructed in the most horrible way,” said David Thompson, author of “Wall of Pain: The Biography of Phil Spector,” published in 2004. “But we have to separate the two. There are so many people that one once she was revered and we find out they did something terrible. She erases all their successes. I don’t agree. “
Thompson said Spector’s biography was one of his most difficult to write, because he wanted to focus solely on music. But while working on the book, he learned of Spector’s conviction.
“It was a tough balance,” he said. “I wanted to write about music, just what I did, what I created and what it gave us. But he had to balance it with the horrible things he did. “