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The 100 best musicians of all time: Phil Spector – Essay by Jerry Wexler
There are three categories of music producers. In the first, the documentary tanks such as Leonard Chess, who goes into a bar on Chicagos Southside, sees Muddy Waters with his six -person group, brings them to the studio the next day and tells them: “Play the same thing you played last night.”
The second category includes producers who put themselves in the service of the artist. These include John Hammond, Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun or Bob Thiele: Music fans who try to get the best out of a musician.
And then there is the producer who offers the all -round package – and Phil Spector should be in the front row in this category. For Spector, the song and recording were two sides of a medal, and both existed in his head. Each instrument had its precise role, and everything was meticulously defined beforehand.
Songs like “You’ve Lost That Lovin ‘Feelin'” by the Righteous Brothers or “River Deep, Mountain High” by IKE and Tina Turner were of course interpreted by fantastic singers, but they were still only a facet of the entire work of art. Phil Spector prepared the track, invited the singer to the studio and said: “Now go, sing!”
“Oh man, I came here from California to make hits”
When I met Phil Spector, he was still very young; He slept on the sofa of the Atlantic Office. He was Kess, imagined, but also undoubtedly very talented. I remember that I made a suggestion in the studio and only said: “Oh man, I came here from California to make hits.”
Which meant as much as: “Hold your mouth and forgive you.” But as Dizzy Dean always said: “If you hastily, you can brag about it.” And Phil Spector was on it: he played the piano and guitar, composed and produced.