17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Spectacular!, June 9, 2007
This review is from: Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector (Hardcover)
Those familiar with Mick Brown's work for newspapers or his earlier books (in particular The Spiritual Tourist) will have an idea of what to expect. Intelligent, thoughtful and stylish writing of the highest order. Mick manages to cram the book with myriad facts, while never seeming to make it information heavy, but he also never loses sight of his subject. Unlike many biographers, Mick places Spector within the broad sweep of his life and times while simultaneously showing him to be a three dimensional character. From the earliest pages Spector, a man who many of us think we know but in reality what we know is rumour and tittle-tattle, becomes more than just a name, a reputation and a myth - he becomes a real person. This book will standout for many years to come as one of the single best biographies about a musician, or for that matter a man or woman from whatever walk of life.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Phil Spector: A Tortured Human Being, July 9, 2007
This review is from: Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector (Hardcover)
This book will tell you all you want to know about music producer Phil Spector in addition to a number of things you could do without. It is, without question, a thorough biography. The only thing missing is the outcome of the trial in which he is accused of murdering Lana Clarkson. Scarred during childhood by the suicide of his father and the bullying he received at school, Spector used people to advance his own cause. He would treat his musicians wonderfully while his singers who would make hits of the songs he produced would often be treated contemptuously as only teen-agers. He needed people around him to ward off the loneliness, but treated them in such a way they would abandon him. Several of his friends, among them Lenny Bruce and John Lennon, passed away leaving Spector to deliver eulogies at their funerals. His unfortunate marriage to Ronnie Bennett of The Ronettes was doomed to fail. He was smitten by her beauty while she was hoping he would advance her singing career. Upon marriage Spector slammed the door on her career by keeping her holed up in their mansion. Prescription drugs, alcohol, an arsenal of guns, bizarre behavior, and his hair trigger temper of screaming profanities have formed a combustible mixture in dealing with people throughout the decades. In the past he has threatened others who visited his mansion when they have wanted to leave, and whether he is found guilty of Ms. Clarkson's murder remains to be seen. Phil Spector's life, by his own admission, has not been a happy one. This is a very depressing life story. For Phil Spector's sake I sincerely hope he gets his life straightened out.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Journalistic biography of famed record producer, September 28, 2007
This review is from: Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector (Hardcover)
Phil Spector has been the subject of profiles and biographies ever since Tom Wolfe's essay, "The First Tycoon of Teen" was published in 1964. Subsequent volumes have included Richard Williams' 1972 "Out of His Head: The Sound of Phil Spector," and Mark Riboswky's 1989 "He's a Rebel: The Truth About Phil Spector - Rock and Roll's Legendary Madman." Each provided a view of Spector that was shaped by the author's background and the times in which the biography was written. Of the four, Brown's is the most journalistic, though given the story he had to tell, it still turned out sensationalistic.
Wolfe began the Spector profiling with a hyperkinetic magazine article (reprinted in the anthology "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby") that read like a souped-up press release. Spector's troubled childhood, particularly his father's suicide, was omitted, and the whole psychological foundation of his behavior was left unexplained. Wolfe's portrait found Spector reaching the crest of fame that would sustain his legacy. Williams, writing in the early '70s, profiled Spector after he'd produced the grand failure of "River Deep, Mountain High," and resuscitated his legend with "Let it Be," and solo albums by George Harrison and John Lennon. Like Wolfe, Williams didn't expose the intimate detail of Spector's childhood, nor report on Spector's outrageous behaviors, resulting in more of a caricature than a portrait. The book became quite scarce (trading at $100 or more) until it was reprinted in 2003.
Williams' portrait stood until 1989, when Ribowsky wrote an explosively detailed biography. Ribowsky explored the details of Spector's childhood, including the family dynamics and the lifelong impact of Ben Spector's suicide. Ribowsky laid bare many of the incidents for which Spector became infamous, including details of his marriage to Ronnie Spector, his troubled adoptions, and his tumultuous encounters with artists and business associates. The Spector that emerged was significantly more complex than earlier profiles, alternately brilliant, obstinate, generous, petty, charming and bitter. The book was dishy, but filled with new detail.
Fast forward nearly fifteen years, and British journalist Mick Brown scored a rare in-person interview with Spector. Just weeks after conducting the interview, Lana Clarkson was shot dead in the foyer of Spector's Alhambra, California home, and the interview became the lead-in to a much larger effort. Brown published his interview, and then decided to research and write a full Spector biography. Though the book was grounded in lucky timing, Brown's journalistic skill keeps this from feeling opportunistic, even as he refracted the story of Spector's life through the prism of Clarkson's death.
Readers can't help but read this as a chronicle that foreshadows Clarkson's shooting. It's hard to discern whether Brown gave the violent aspects of Spector's story an unusually heavy emphasis or if the endless news cycles on Spector's trial have simply sensitized readers, but either way, Spector's brutishly insecure behaviors and reoccurring gun-play stand out as highlighted threads holding the rest of the story together. Brown's talent as a journalist allows this to remain an historical biography, just one that heavily portends its concluding event. The writing style is fluid, and the research deeper than any that's gone before, providing enlightening details of Spector's work in the studio and in business.
The megalomania that formed the basis of Spector's grandest productions had been described in earlier biographies, but Brown's more clearly explains its genesis and operation. His narrative effectively sews together accounts from numerous interviews, weaving together Spector's remembrances with those of others. More importantly, he's let disagreements between parties stand, providing multiple angles on situations that shade the parties' veracity and leave the reader to decide who's right. Spector emerges from the analysis more as the on-going, lifelong product of childhood traumas than as someone intentionally inflicting drama on everyone around him.
Where Brown falls short - where all the biographers before have also failed - is in explaining how Spector was repeatedly able to overcome his reputation to gain new associates and land new jobs. The descriptions of Spector's charisma, artistic brilliance, and the proven genius of his recordings fail to balance the stories of craziness. Perhaps that's just an artifact of condensing fifty years of events into 464 pages: Spector's charisma remains an enigma to those who haven't experienced it first hand.
Spector's life is as engrossing as his records, and Brown's done the best job yet of separating the story from the purpose-built legend. It's well worth reading all of the Spector biographies in chronological order to see how biography writing's changed over the decades, and how a writer, a rock critic and a journalist each approach the task. But if you're only going to read one, this is it. [©2007 hyperbolium dot com]
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