Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector

About this book

Tearing Down the Wall of Sound is a remarkable book about among other things fame obsession genius money and madness. It paints the fullest picture yet of a man who whether creating some of the greatest pop music of all time or destroying the lives of those closest to him seems to have existed in a continuous state of mental agitation. The Phil Spector story still awaits its ending. In the meantime this is the definitive study of the man and the myth that engulfed him. Sean OHagan The Observer (U.K.) With a number-one hit at age eighteen a millionaire with his own label by twenty-two and proclaimed by Tom Wolfe The First Tycoon of Teen Phil Spector owned pop culture his roster as a producer including the Ronettes the Righteous Brothers Ike and Tina Turner the Beatles then John Lennon and George Harrison as well as Leonard Cohen and the Ramones. But in the spring of 2007 he stands trial for murder. A spectacularly troubled genius Spector created with the Wall of Sound music never heard before from Be My Baby and Youve Lost That Lovin Feelin to Imagine and My Sweet Lord. He suffered poorly the quantum shifts in rock and rollnot to mention the loss of his friends Lenny Bruce and John Lennongrowing ever more reclusive and abusive. By the turn of this century however he was not only sober but also attracted to new bands who knew his reputation good and bad all too well. Then in February 2003 he leapt back into the headlines when Lana Clarkson an actress was found dead by gunshot in his Los Angeles mansion. Only weeks before Spector had granted Mick Brown the first major interview hed given in twenty-five yearsthe seed for this definitive mesmerizing biography of a man who first became a king then something else altogether.