Music Producer Phil Spector Arrested in LA Murder
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Legendary rock producer Phil Spector, who revolutionized pop music with his lush “Wall of Sound” recordings in the 1960s, was arrested for murder on Monday in the shooting death of a woman in her 20s at his mock castle on a Los Angeles hilltop.
Spector, the reclusive and eccentric genius behind such classic hits as “Be My Baby” and “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” and the man who made the Ronettes and the Crystals superstars, was in the process of posting $1 million bail pending an arraignment, officials said.
Investigators said a woman in her 20s was found in the foyer of Spector’s make-believe castle in the suburb of Alhambra with the 62-year-old record producer nearby. The weapon was also recovered and Spector was taken into custody at the scene.
The woman was not immediately identified by police who were waiting for next-of-kin to be notified. Police believe she arrived at the house with Spector in his black Mercedes which was still parked outside with its the passenger door ajar.
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Faye Bugarin said officers were called at 5 a.m. (8 a.m. EST) to Spector’s 10-bedroom, eight-bathroom “Pyrenes Castle,” which stands behind wrought-iron gates on a private road and found a woman who had been shot dead.
Spokesmen for Spector, a two-time Grammy winner, did not immediately return calls seeking comment. He was being represented by Robert Shapiro, the veteran lawyer who played a key role in the defense of O.J. Simpson during his so-called “Trial of the Century.” Simpson was found not guilty of murdering his ex-wife and her friend.
Neighbors said the producer was rarely seen at the red-tiled, turreted replica castle with a marble entrance overlooking a middle-class neighborhood and shielded by large pine trees. He was sometimes seen coming or going in a white Rolls Royce or another car.
Tom Mestaz, who lives near the castle, said that while Spector was not there often, lately he had seen lights on in the residence at night. Several neighbors reported hearing dogs barking early Monday morning.
WALL OF SOUND
A pioneer in pop record production, the Bronx-born Spector is famed for his “Wall of Sound” technique that featured lush orchestration with strings, horns and additional percussion added to the spare instrumentation of rock music.
Formerly married to Ronnie Bennett of the Ronettes, one of several girl groups he ushered into super-stardom, Spector developed a reputation as a temperamental, reclusive and erratic genius.
Spector got his start in the music business in 1958 as a songwriter, guitarist and backup singer for the Los Angeles group the Teddy Bears, which had a hit single with “To Know Him is to Love Him” and made him a millionaire by age 21.
Soon after the group split, Spector pursued a career as a songwriter and producer, working primarily with the Crystals and the Ronettes. He went on to produce records for the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Ike & Tina Turner, Eric Clapton and the Righteous Brothers. He was voted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.
He was hired by the Beatles to do post-production work on their “Let It Be” album, which Paul McCartney and many critics later criticized as overdone.
He also produced the first solo albums from John Lennon and George Harrison and shared a Grammy with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and others for producing the “Concert for Bangladesh” album, named album of the year for 1972.
In a business where the singer is the star, Spector often outshone his clients.
Spector “elevated record production to commercial art,” former Rolling Stones manager and Spector protege Andrew Loog Oldham wrote in his 2001 memoirs “Stoned.”
“In scale and presence he was to the record biz what Orson Welles was to Hollywood. ‘You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling’ and ‘River Deep Mountain High,’ like ‘Citizen Kane’ and ‘Touch of Evil,’ could not be created merely by re-creating what had been successful in the past.”
Spector was just 17 when he wrote and produced his first No. 1 hit, “To Know Him Is To Love Him” — a line taken from the inscription on his father’s gravestone — for his high school group, the Teddy Bears. The teen tycoon would go on to produce 17 top-10 U.S. hits in a decade.
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