The Hit Man Goeth. It's the final sweet release for flaky Phil Spector, Gun enthusiast and mad genius musical director, Hit after hit till, finally, one fine day Fatefully and fatally he blew it all away; Phil, put the safety on when you gun play. Perfect within his 'wall of sound' but mentally unsound, The slow slide from Top of the Pops to deep Underground, Soft the muffled farewell bell rang, A token sob from the mournful old gang; Gone out with a whimper, not a bang. (As is all too obvious, I'm a fan of his music, not the man.)
©Obbverse.
A dangerous freak but a musical talent.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes; shot through with frailties?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I sometimes think that the egomania and intolerant obnoxious personality makes a bad person but a good producer… they know the end result they want and don’t put up with any roadblocks along the way.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A tortured soul at best. They tend to make great producers and artist because they can’t focus on more than one thing at a time and exist in an alternate reality. His was music production and he did a fine job of it for a long while. Not many people know that he is the guy in the Rolls Royce buying cocaine from Peter Fonda in the movie Easy Rider.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That ‘Easy Rider’ fact I did not know! I can’t help but wonder if they just filmed a slice of real life?
LikeLike
Quite possible. Spector was a sniffer before it became hip in LA. Fonda and Hopper were your regular old potheads and bourbon drinkers. About the time that film came out, a buddy and I took a trip to Florida from Texas in my VW bus, which of course had peace symbol stickers plastered all over and surfboard racks. We had the obligatory longish hair and Texas plates. What could go wrong? We were pulled over a few times in Louisiana and Mississippi just so the officers could say ” you not from around here are ya boy?” I look back on that trip now and wonder, “what the hell were we thinking.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Different times, and the simple naivety of youth! This wouldn’t have been a red VW microbus, with peace signs? Ah, the bus, powered by fumes…. I can just picture it now ; Perhapsit’s still enshrined in a photo or two, a Microbus stuck in time -perhaps a thanksgiving- or in 27 eight X tens, with circles and arrows drawn on the backs? No wait, maybe I’m getting confused with another VW tale!?
LikeLike
Not a red one, but white and tan. I may have a picture.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Any confusion over my confusing ramblings- refer to Arlo Guthries ‘Alices Restaurant!’
LikeLike
Yep, I liked that one too. Arlo was pretty trippy back in the day. Standing on the stage at Woodstock saying ” Wow” for twenty minuets, then John Sebastian does the same thing. Men of few words.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Whilst I agree that Spector often created (forced?) just the sound he wanted, and I do appreciate many of his efforts, the fact remains that he would not have been placed on his (now vaporous and sullied) pedestal without the musical artists he willfully managed to subvert. Talent should be appreciated for what it is, not for what you can manipulate it to be.
I’m probably being overly-cranky and dismissive. It wouldn’t be the first time. Perhaps I’m still disgruntled over that pivotal moment in my own musical career when Spector took my acoustic folk song about gay pride in rural 80s Oklahoma and turned it into a rap song about police violence, because that was trendy at the time… 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
I understand your annoyance, he was in many ways a master manipulator, anything he could he would subvert to his ego. And no, not over cranky, he was a wretch of a man, and fame only stoked his ego further. There’s a familiar story- what fresh Hell was in the New York water in the early Forties?
LikeLiked by 1 person