Well,well,well-we see another celebrity has gotten away(and I mean this literally!) with murder again.In this case being Phil Spector; whose case today was declared a mistrial. Why am I not surprised? O.J., Robert Blake,the new current 'brat pack' are thumbing their noses at the law and getting away with it.
But this isn't about celebrity crimes;the question I have today concerns music. For many years, I've been hearing about Phil Spector's contribution to music, his innovations,and not surprisingly, his eccentricities. I had never heard Spector's whole body of work in one setting until the early 90s, when the record store I was working for was selling a compilation of Spector's biggest hits. We played the whole set, and quite frankly, I didn't understand what all the shouting was all about.
To me, the songs were mediocre,sung by mediocre singers(The Crystals? The Ronnettes? Oh welll...to each his own, I say), but I did like The Righteous Brothers' stuff.What comes up a lot about Spector is this so-called 'wall of sound',where I believe he stacked musicians' sounds against one another, until it sounded like an orchestra playing behind these singers(am I right on this folks?)
However, Spector's engineer, from what I understand, was Larry Levine, who was also Herb Alpert's engineer! From listening to the two gentlemen's recordings,to me his work on Herb's sessions is what I like the best.Every instrument's sound is clear, the engineering is impeccable, and everything works together on a whole, because of Levine's engineering. His Spector stuff sounds too dense,too foggy, and not all too pleasant to listen to.
What I really want to know is: did Spector commission Larry to create this sound; like 'I really have this great idea Larry for a sound, let's do it'! Or did Larry just hit upon this sound, and present it to Phil? For too long, Phil has gotten TOO much credit for this, and nobody talks about Larry and what he did. As the producer, Spector certainly had the power to take credit for himself, and not acknowledge what Levine really did. So who REALLY created the wall of sound,then? Phil or Larry? Would like to know!
But this isn't about celebrity crimes;the question I have today concerns music. For many years, I've been hearing about Phil Spector's contribution to music, his innovations,and not surprisingly, his eccentricities. I had never heard Spector's whole body of work in one setting until the early 90s, when the record store I was working for was selling a compilation of Spector's biggest hits. We played the whole set, and quite frankly, I didn't understand what all the shouting was all about.
To me, the songs were mediocre,sung by mediocre singers(The Crystals? The Ronnettes? Oh welll...to each his own, I say), but I did like The Righteous Brothers' stuff.What comes up a lot about Spector is this so-called 'wall of sound',where I believe he stacked musicians' sounds against one another, until it sounded like an orchestra playing behind these singers(am I right on this folks?)
However, Spector's engineer, from what I understand, was Larry Levine, who was also Herb Alpert's engineer! From listening to the two gentlemen's recordings,to me his work on Herb's sessions is what I like the best.Every instrument's sound is clear, the engineering is impeccable, and everything works together on a whole, because of Levine's engineering. His Spector stuff sounds too dense,too foggy, and not all too pleasant to listen to.
What I really want to know is: did Spector commission Larry to create this sound; like 'I really have this great idea Larry for a sound, let's do it'! Or did Larry just hit upon this sound, and present it to Phil? For too long, Phil has gotten TOO much credit for this, and nobody talks about Larry and what he did. As the producer, Spector certainly had the power to take credit for himself, and not acknowledge what Levine really did. So who REALLY created the wall of sound,then? Phil or Larry? Would like to know!
neeye: 
