After six years on trial, record producer Phil Spector has been found guilty of the charge of murder in the second degree. He faces a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
The 69 year old Spector is perhaps best known for his Wall of Sound production technique, which used multiple instruments playing the same parts in unison, and recording in an echo chamber to create the multilayered, richer sound. A great example of this kind of production, though not engineered by Spector himself, is found on Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run album.
The victim, actress Lana Clarkson, was found with a fatal bullet wound in Spector’s Alhambra mansion on February 3rd, 2003. Though the defense claimed that Clarkson took her own life, despondent of the state of her acting career, Spector’s history of threatening behavior mitigated against this being a strong defense.
Also, and not to treat this story too lightly, probably looking like a cross between The Cars’ Ric Ocasek and Phyllis Diller doesn’t help. The guy just looks crazy, and when jurors have to decide between two conflicting reports, they’re likely to weigh against someone who’s even a bit outside of the norm. And when you consider that his ex-wife, singer Ronnie Spector, years after their divorce, wrote “I can only say that when I left in the early ’70s, I knew that if I didn’t leave at that time, I was going to die there”, it’s not too difficult to believe that Spector might be guilty of his charge after all.
yeah this guy is a flat-out loon. ‘be my baby’ is still a classic tho. undeniable.