Phil Spector Dead at 81

[porcy62]

2 minutes ago, Brad said:

You want Wall of Sound? This IS Wall of Sound. 
 

I’m ok with All Things. The record is a classic. I’m curious how it would sound otherwise though. 

I was okay with Let It Be since I listened to LIB Naked...

[felser]

20 minutes ago, porcy62 said:

I like Spector's work on some Lennon records, I like it less on Harrison All Thing Must Pass.

I can't imagine "All Things Must Pass" without the Spector touch.  Makes the set for me.  And I do love how "Instant Karma" sounds as a record.    

[porcy62]

30 minutes ago, felser said:

I can't imagine "All Things Must Pass" without the Spector touch.  Makes the set for me.  And I do love how "Instant Karma" sounds as a record.    

Wikipedia reports that in 2001 Harrison wanted to remix the record in order to remove most of the reverb, but EMI vetoed it.

Edited January 19, 2021 by porcy62

[mjzee]

16 hours ago, Dmitry said:

I'll be picking up the Back to Mono set. 

I've owned the original CD box for a couple of decades now, and was always dissatisfied with the sound quality.  It just sounds like layers of mush, very little clarity.  I know Sony has had a reissue program of individual artists; does anyone know if the sound quality has improved?

 

[JSngry]

50 minutes ago, Brad said:

You want Wall of Sound? This IS Wall of Sound. 
 

 

That's a wall of scaffolding, no sound  in that unless it falls down.

THIS is wall Of Sound!

 

[mjzee]

59 minutes ago, Brad said:

I’m ok with All Things. The record is a classic. I’m curious how it would sound otherwise though. 

I own All Things on vinyl, and two sides are pressed off-center.  Now there's an aural experience.

[felser]

32 minutes ago, mjzee said:

I've owned the original CD box for a couple of decades now, and was always dissatisfied with the sound quality.  It just sounds like layers of mush, very little clarity.  I know Sony has had a reissue program of individual artists; does anyone know if the sound quality has improved?

That's how they were meant to sound. Overall aural impact, no clarity of specific instruments.

[JSngry]

Wall of Sound. Not wall of details.

Having said that....digital is not the best way to ear these records. It just isn't. It'll do if you have to, but...digital tricks you into thinking that it's jsut a bad mix instead of revealing what a glouriously intentional mix it is. Digital wants you to listen for the details. Vinyl gives you the reality - the details are there, but you have to decode them.

I have an OG Philles Christmas LP (again with the noisy vinyl). I've bought that thing in every format imaginable, keep waiting for something to be "better", but every year, out come the OG.

I was helping somebody mix their record once (no names, ok?). It was a jazz record, and there were thee horns playing a background. The guy ws looking for the right place in the mis for them. Everything was single miked then, so it was easy to say, hey try this...er-EQ each of the horns, mix them into a single sound, add reverb, and pull tehm into the background even further...it was ethereal like a mo, and the guy was excited. He said what made you think to do that? I said, Phil Spector!

I ain't making a goddamn rock and roll record, he said as he reset the levers,

Oh well!

[Brad]

For those who play vinyl Sundazed is having a sale on Phil Spector related music.

https://sundazed.com/store/Search.aspx?SearchTerms=Phil%20Spector%20

[Dmitry]

Well, I got the BACK TO MONO 4-cd set, and I love it!
Not being exposed to this music when it first came out, I can only imagine how it affected the hearts and other, more vital organs of American teenagers. Spector is possibly responsible for more teenage pregnancies than anyone I can think of. Some of the songs I've heard many times before, but didn't associate with him; others were my first listen. This has been in rotation for a few days now. It's excellent, energizing weekend morning music.
As far as the sound of the set, I think his Lo-Fi approach is delicious; it doesn't bother me a bit.
Being of a scientific mind, I went out and bought two old Philles Ronettes 45s - 
Be My Baby / Tedesco and Pittman
Is This What I Get For Loving You? / Oh, I Love You

I'll play these, and will let you know how the sound of the 7" compares to the BTM cds.

Haven't read the massive booklet, or listened to the Christmas cd yet, but this set is a very nice start to my new year. 

Question - many, if not most of the old 7" singles have no Side A and Side B marked on the labels. How do we know which one was the hit side, adn which was a flip side, without referring to discographies? Why wasnt that reflected on the record labels to begin with?

 

[mjzee]

40 minutes ago, Dmitry said:

Question - many, if not most of the old 7" singles have no Side A and Side B marked on the labels. How do we know which one was the hit side, adn which was a flip side, without referring to discographies? Why wasnt that reflected on the record labels to begin with?

In general with 45s, there's a secondary reference number usually under the catalog number, and that reference number is different on the two sides.  If they're sequential, the lower number is the A side.  There's also sometimes an indication etched into the deadwax that might say A or B.  I usually consult Discogs or Wikipedia if I'm unsure.  Don't forget that sometimes the intended A side was not the hit.  For example, the Everly Brothers' "Ebony Eyes" was released as the A side, but the B side, "Walk Right Back," was the one that clicked with listeners and became the hit.

[JSngry]

When you play "Tedesco and Pitman', it should take 5 second or less to determine if it was intended as the A side or the B side.

Trust me on this one.

 

[Dmitry]

Tedesco and Pitman ...I didn't know Phil wrote soul jazz tunes. I did NOT expect this. It's getting more interesting. The title is implying Tommy Tedesco and Bill Pitman...some kind of an inside joke, probably. Why would Spector put this on the flip side of a massive hit?

 

Edited February 3, 2021 by Dmitry
Thumbs typing skills lacking.

[felser]

19 hours ago, JSngry said:

When you play "Tedesco and Pitman', it should take 5 second or less to determine if it was intended as the A side or the B side.

Trust me on this one.

 

Especially when the flip side is the Ronette's "Be My Baby".

[Dmitry]

Regarding the SQ of the original Be My Baby 45 vs. the BTM CD...it would be foolhardy to rely just on one song for any kind of verdict, but the sound between them is not 'night and day' different. They are pretty darn close sonically...lo-fi...probably sounded all right on single-speaker car radios. Why bother with the stereo mixes, when you only play it on a mono machine...

[JSngry]

10 hours ago, Dmitry said:

Tedesco and Pitman ...I didn't know Phil wrote soul jazz tunes. I did NOT expect this. It's getting more interesting. The title is implying Tommy Tedesco and Bill Pitman...some kind of an inside joke, probably. Why would Spector put this on the flip side of a massive hit?

 

To keep the DJs from turning the record over. Simple as that.

Believe it or not, there was a time when Top 40 DJs were autonomous individuals who would play what they wanted, when they wanted. There's a little subset of hit records that started out as A-sides that the DJs didn't like, but they did like the flip side and started playing that instead, and it became a hit.

AM Top 40 radio used to be a lot of fun, because there were "rules", but not RULES. No programmed playlists, and definitely no prerecorded song sets. Of course, not all DJs felt empowered to wing it, but there were enough who did (at all hours, too) that you had things like regional hits, or even local hits. Thus, payola. Nobody told the DJs what to play, the DJs called the shots.

And Spector didn't like that, for whatever reasons. So he did stuff like put out 45s with loose studio jazzjams on the B-Side, or putting false timings on some records to make them seem shorter than they really were. I've heard it posited that a lot of DJs were loathe to play Spector's records because they kept getting noisier and noisier, and Phil kept getting more arrogant and disrespectful by doing stuff like that (remember, there was a National DJ Convention that was HUGE, these guys had clout), and it all came to a head with "River Deep, Mountain high" - not a teen band, again, past the 3:00 "barrier), and the noisiest record yet (and do go out and get the 45 on that one, I've yet to hear another format that sounds like it). Some speculate that there was an unspoken conspiracy to show Spector who was boss, and the decision was made to put the kibosh the record.

It's interesting to me to look at certain records that pop artists make that were genuine artistic breakthroughs that tanked and then left scars of one sort or another on the artists. Spector had River Deep, Brian Wilson had Pet Sounds, Joni Mitchell had Hissing Of Summer Lawns, Stevie Wonder had Journey to The Secret Life Of Plants, I'm sure there are others. The Art vs Commerce battle in Pop Music is as treacherous as the music is naïve.

Bottom line - you can fuck (with) the industry for as long as you are of use to the industry. And that shit is subject to change at any moment.

There were two Spector bios (TWO!) that were readily available in all good record stores in the mid-70 - The Phil Spector Sound & Out Of His Head. both are excellent sources of information, and both are different than anything since, because they were written before Spector totally desended into reclusion, guns, and madness.

 

 

9 minutes ago, Dmitry said:

Regarding the SQ of the original Be My Baby 45 vs. the BTM CD...it would be foolhardy to rely just on one song for any kind of verdict, but the sound between them is not 'night and day' different. They are pretty darn close sonically...lo-fi...probably sounded all right on single-speaker car radios. Why bother with the stereo mixes, when you only play it on a mono machine...

Yeah, well, you have an excellent modern hi-fi system. Those records should not be played on that type of rig. Go to a flea market and buy something like this:

And if you rally want to splurge, buy an vintage jukebox.

Whatever you do, do not play it on anything resembling "audiophile" and whatever else you do, play it LOUD.

 

[JSngry]

I see the Richard Williams book has been revised and updated, for whatever that's worth. My interest in Spector is pretty much limited to the way he acted out through music, which was equal parts inspiring and disturbing, genius and madness (listen again to "I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine"...), the rest of it...not so much. so I'm sticking with what I got.

[Dan Gould]

12 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I see the Richard Williams book has been revised and updated, for whatever that's worth. My interest in Spector is pretty much limited to the way he acted out through music, which was equal parts inspiring and disturbing, genius and madness (listen again to "I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine"...), the rest of it...not so much. so I'm sticking with what I got.

If I were interested enough, it would be in the car wreck aspects and I doubt you get all of that if he willingly participated in a book.

But I think that part or most of your fascination, and part or most of my lack, is listening to his productions in the moment vs as part of "oldies radio" approved records.

[felser]

42 minutes ago, JSngry said:

To keep the DJs from turning the record over. Simple as that.

Believe it or not, there was a time when Top 40 DJs were autonomous individuals who would play what they wanted, when they wanted. There's a little subset of hit records that started out as A-sides that the DJs didn't like, but they did like the flip side and started playing that instead, and it became a hit.

AM Top 40 radio used to be a lot of fun, because there were "rules", but not RULES. No programmed playlists, and definitely no prerecorded song sets. Of course, not all DJs felt empowered to wing it, but there were enough who did (at all hours, too) that you had things like regional hits, or even local hits. Thus, payola. Nobody told the DJs what to play, the DJs called the shots.

And Spector didn't like that, for whatever reasons. So he did stuff like put out 45s with loose studio jazzjams on the B-Side, or putting false timings on some records to make them seem shorter than they really were. I've heard it posited that a lot of DJs were loathe to play Spector's records because they kept getting noisier and noisier, and Phil kept getting more arrogant and disrespectful by doing stuff like that (remember, there was a National DJ Convention that was HUGE, these guys had clout), and it all came to a head with "River Deep, Mountain high" - not a teen band, again, past the 3:00 "barrier), and the noisiest record yet (and do go out and get the 45 on that one, I've yet to hear another format that sounds like it). Some speculate that there was an unspoken conspiracy to show Spector who was boss, and the decision was made to put the kibosh the record.

It's interesting to me to look at certain records that pop artists make that were genuine artistic breakthroughs that tanked and then left scars of one sort or another on the artists. Spector had River Deep, Brian Wilson had Pet Sounds, Joni Mitchell had Hissing Of Summer Lawns, Stevie Wonder had Journey to The Secret Life Of Plants, I'm sure there are others. The Art vs Commerce battle in Pop Music is as treacherous as the music is naïve.

Bottom line - you can fuck (with) the industry for as long as you are of use to the industry. And that shit is subject to change at any moment.

The other motivation on garbage B-sides is songwriting royalties on the record sales.  Spector took full writing credit on this one, and the songwriting royalties for the B-side were the same as the songwrting royalties for the A-side.  He messed up on the garbage B-side bit on "Hung on You", as he stuck Bobby Hatfield singing "Unchained Melody" there (No Bill Medley involvement at all, songwriting royalties went outside), and it got flipped of course.  "Cara Mia" by Jay & The Americans was meant as a B-side.  "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" by Steam was meant as a B-side.  There were lots of others.  Sometimes records got flipped by some DJ's, not by others, and both sides charted but ended up in the nether regions of the charts.  BTW, England didn't get the message on "River Deep, Mountain High", and it was a huge hit there (as was 'Pet Sounds').  And Englad actually got "good" Herman and the Hermits 45's, not "Mrs. Brown" or "Henry the Eighth".  Etc.  But it works both ways.  

Edited February 3, 2021 by felser

[JSngry]

9 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

If I were interested enough, it would be in the car wreck aspects and I doubt you get all of that if he willingly participated in a book.

But I think that part or most of your fascination, and part or most of my lack, is listening to his productions in the moment vs as part of "oldies radio" approved records.

"oldies radio" is an unfortunate phenomenon. The premise of the context is itself an artificial construct, and the way it's played out over the years is damn near sinister. They select a handful of songs, and by god these are the songs you WILL remember.

The only "oldies" station that I ever heard that was worth a damn was one that they had in Tampa when I lived there, 1990-91. It was an AM station and they played a LOT more than just the "approved" hits...which is how I recall listening to Top 40 radio in a damn near obsessive fashion form ca, 1963 through ca, 1970. This idea of a "canon" of "oldies"...it's bullshit, same as it is with any other field of music. It's one thing for there to be more or less "universal favorites", it's another thing to block out everything else that happened. Force feeding the same thing every day every year...yuck.

No wonder so many people hate music.

and let's talk about surface noise...thos Gary U.S. Bonds 45s...one of the Spector books looks at Frank Guida & Legrand Records and how they exploited their limited resources and turn it into a big bundle of NOISE - not only the recording itself, but the cheap noisy vinyl. they did that shit intentionally, the nose was meant to be part of the record. Oldies radio cleans that shit up/away, sanitizes it, and what you're left with is something that won't interrupt you even a little.

It's evil!

[felser]

Much of the 50's-early 60's stuff sounded like it was beamed in from another planet (complete with interstellar distortion).

 

 

[Dan Gould]

22 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Oldies radio cleans that shit up/away, sanitizes it, and what you're left with is something that won't interrupt you even a little.

It's evil!

Not anymore! It hardly exists at least as a format at least on terrestrial radio. The oldies station in Miami dropped the 60s entirely years ago.  I don't know if any "oldies" format touches the 60s at all, though again there might be a spot for it on satellite services.

20 years ago there was a station in south Florida peddling "hits of the 70s, 80s and today". Man that was nauseating - stuff I grew up with alongside all of the crap that ultimately turned me to jazz and kept me there.

[JSngry]

Hell, I remember when "oldies but goodies" were mostly reserved for weekends, and then only like 2-3 hour.

When Sha-Na-Nah first hit the scene, they were considered radical and conceptual (and maybe they were!).

Just saying, the same thing has happened with "swing", the reduction of a truly wide-spread cultural experience into a reductionist instacapsule to that tries to make you think that this is all there was, is, and will be.

And then, when a discovery of somebody like, say, Alvin Robinson comes along, the malevolent myopia is once again shattered and revealed for the fool's game that it is. There has been a lot of music. There still is a lot of music. A lot. It's all over the place, and hopefully always will be.

Music is not commerce and commerce is not music. They are at best, at best, business partners that never fully trust each other to do what the other wants.

[Dmitry]

47 minutes ago, JSngry said:

To keep the DJs from turning the record over. Simple as that.

Believe it or not, there was a time when Top 40 DJs were autonomous individuals who would play what they wanted, when they wanted. There's a little subset of hit records that started out as A-sides that the DJs didn't like, but they did like the flip side and started playing that instead, and it became a hit.

AM Top 40 radio used to be a lot of fun, because there were "rules", but not RULES. No programmed playlists, and definitely no prerecorded song sets. Of course, not all DJs felt empowered to wing it, but there were enough who did (at all hours, too) that you had things like regional hits, or even local hits. Thus, payola. Nobody told the DJs what to play, the DJs called the shots.

And Spector didn't like that, for whatever reasons. So he did stuff like put out 45s with loose studio jazzjams on the B-Side, or putting false timings on some records to make them seem shorter than they really were. I've heard it posited that a lot of DJs were loathe to play Spector's records because they kept getting noisier and noisier, and Phil kept getting more arrogant and disrespectful by doing stuff like that (remember, there was a National DJ Convention that was HUGE, these guys had clout), and it all came to a head with "River Deep, Mountain high" - not a teen band, again, past the 3:00 "barrier), and the noisiest record yet (and do go out and get the 45 on that one, I've yet to hear another format that sounds like it). Some speculate that there was an unspoken conspiracy to show Spector who was boss, and the decision was made to put the kibosh the record.

It's interesting to me to look at certain records that pop artists make that were genuine artistic breakthroughs that tanked and then left scars of one sort or another on the artists. Spector had River Deep, Brian Wilson had Pet Sounds, Joni Mitchell had Hissing Of Summer Lawns, Stevie Wonder had Journey to The Secret Life Of Plants, I'm sure there are others. The Art vs Commerce battle in Pop Music is as treacherous as the music is naïve.

Bottom line - you can fuck (with) the industry for as long as you are of use to the industry. And that shit is subject to change at any moment.

There were two Spector bios (TWO!) that were readily available in all good record stores in the mid-70 - The Phil Spector Sound & Out Of His Head. both are excellent sources of information, and both are different than anything since, because they were written before Spector totally desended into reclusion, guns, and madness.

 

 

Yeah, well, you have an excellent modern hi-fi system. Those records should not be played on that type of rig. Go to a flea market and buy something like this:

And if you rally want to splurge, buy an vintage jukebox.

Whatever you do, do not play it on anything resembling "audiophile" and whatever else you do, play it LOUD.

 

Excellent post, thanks a lot!

This is brilliant stuff. So before FM radio became mega-corporate, aside from some college stations and a handful of indies, a DJ could mess with things if he/she wanted to. I'm sure they were still revenue-driven, and played the hits, but as you say, they were the ones creating the hits...no radio play - no hit. I wonder if that sword swung both ways - could a producer or an artist end DJ's career?

After Spector's death, and when this thread started, I watched a 2-hour long interview with him, done by a BBC affiliate during his first trial. Jim, you would really get a lot of insight from it. I can't find it on YouTube any more. It's described here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2008/10_october/25/spector.shtml

There are only snippets of it available now....like this. In all his craziness, he was still a brilliant, unique-minded music man in his later years. One of the things he said, and I'll never forget (this was during the time of Obama's first presidential run), something to the effect that he supported, but at the same time was suspect of it, because every organically-occurring political movement is a complex that has music associated and created along with it...but that one did not.

Regarding the stereo - I suppose a portable suitcase player, with a 10 gm. tracking weight tonearm is the preferred mode. Or a mono radio, in a back seat of a whale-sized 1960s Detroit car. 

Playing this material on my stereo IS somewhat of a WTF experience; my current speakers cost more than my first car, a P.O.S. 1983 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera I bought very used, when I was very young. The only thing that didn't break in it WAS the radio.

[JSngry]

Top 40 radio was entirely revenue driven. The revenue came (mostly-to-entirely) from selling ads. Ad prices, were, of course, driven by ratings/listeners. So the object of the game was to get the listeners to buy the records that the DJs played so the listeners would want to listen to the DJ so the station could sell ad blocks. That's a big reason (along with a collective short attention span) why Top 40 records hovered around the 3 minute mark - it lended itself to a good block of programming that then set up a good block of advertising. so when Spector put a false timing on a 45, DJs could, if they weren't careful, fuck up their entire blocking, make the ads get a late start, which then made the next music block start late, lather/rinse/repeat. So doing what Spector did, playing games with the timings, was actually a not-too concealed act of aggression.

What I really enjoyed about the whole "block" thing was when a station would always go to national news at the top of the hour and, all of the timings being real-time and not precisely calculated, an hour would run just a little short. That was when the "bumper music" came into play, usually (where I lived) an instrumental, and quite often, jazz. Wes Montgomery's "Windy", I hear that one a lot waiting for the national news to come on. Mongo's "Watermelon Man", that was another one. None of these got played to completion, of course!

So, it was flexible, it breathed, it was DEFINITELY an analog experiencing of time, cats had to improvise as to what records to play when, and there was always that BEEP at the top of the hour when the news feed started.

I liked it. I liked it a LOT more than what passed for "radio" now...

Anybody with an interest in DJs....there's a lot of airchecks out there, and of course there's the Cruisin' series of re-creations, but this one here is a priceless document of the rise and fall of a singular talent. HIGHLY recommended. The guy was a victim of both changing times and self-destructive habits, but LORD have mercy!