In a hurry to record the song "He's a Rebel," but unable to cut the song with the vocalists they had under contract, the New York-based group The Crystals, Sill and Spector turned to Love, who lived in Los Angeles. Usually clocking in at under three minutes long, these explorations of youthful love and desire were what Spector called "little symphonies for the kids."ĭarlene Love began her partnership with Spector in 1962, when she came to the attention of Lester Sill, Spector's business partner and co-founder of their label Philles Records. Spector selected material written by professional songwriters, notably the teams of Jeff Barry & Ellie Greenwich and Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, worked with a core group of talented studio musicians known as the Wrecking Crew and turned to African American women with powerful voices who could hold their own against the booming instrumental tracks. He extended sonic depth and density by working with an enormous orchestra - two pianos, two drums kits, as many as five guitars and three basses, as well as large horn and string sections - and recording at high volume, forcing the studio meters into the red zone that most producers assiduously avoided, then overdubbing and mixing these almost distorted tracks to produce the loud, echoey wall of sound that became his celebrated contribution to rock and roll. Working out of Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles, Spector developed his own variation on this theme. To my mind, it is crucial to pay tribute to the creative labor of the Black women whose voices are such an essential part of Spector's wall of sound.īefore reaching the age of 25, Spector had achieved financial and chart success with the emerging girl group sound, leading writer Tom Wolfe to call him the "Tycoon of Teen." Attentive to pop music trends, Spector built on the practice of marrying orchestral instrumental arrangements and rock and roll vocals that had already proved successful on the charts for African American acts like The Drifters, a male vocal group produced by Spector's mentors Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller in the late 1950s, and The Shirelles, the quartet whose 1960 hit "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," produced by Luther Dixon, ushered in the girl group sound. In his mind, he was the star of these records. Spector augmented his professional stature through recordings that relied on these women and their ability to deliver the vocal sound his records required, but for the most part he was uninterested in contributing to the professional stature of the women themselves. The women who brought their vocal skill to Spector's productions experienced manipulation and erasure, practices Spector routinely employed to minimize their contributions and help advance the narrative of his singular, solitary genius. In the early 1960s, when Spector was honing his craft, rock and roll was an interracial frontier, a context where African American women singers received opportunities but often found themselves working with white, male producers who exercised control over their careers. Music Phil Spector, Legendary Record Producer And Convicted Murderer, Has Died At 81 Starting with Darlene Love (who changed her surname from Wright to Love at Spector's insistence) and continuing on to Dolores "La La" Brooks of The Crystals, Veronica Bennett (later known as Ronnie Spector) of The Ronettes and Tina Turner, these vocalists benefited from and helped to consolidate Spector's genius, even as they contended with the domineering behavior that is intertwined with and integral to his legacy as a masterful music producer. Phil Spector, who died on Saturday at the age of 81, has long been hailed as one of pop music's most influential producers, the man who created the wall of sound and gave us songs like "He's a Rebel," "Da Doo Ron Ron" and "Be My Baby." As an African American woman who loves listening to these rock and roll classics, I usually find myself focusing on the voices of the African American women who collaborated with Spector on these and other iconic recordings and thinking about the often harrowing stories they have told about working with him. Love was the uncredited singer on a handful of the biggest hits produced by Phil Spector during the era when he was making his "Wall of Sound" production technique famous.ĪBC Photo Archives/Walt Disney Television via Getty
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