Phil Spector: Sound of the Sixties

by Sean MacLeod

Overview

Phil Spector is a musician, songwriter and producer whose musical ability and visionary foresight as a producer charted the future of popular music and culture of the late 20th century. He revolutionized recording processes and re-shaped the business and marketing approach of the music industry. While he raised the bar for other musicians and producers to follow and gave a voice to groups struggling to achieve equality during the 60s, Spector was, however, a complex character whose need for control brought much damage and confusion into the lives of those around him as well as into his own career and life.

Phil Spector: Sound of the Sixties follows the ups and downs of Spector’s career as an entrepreneur and businessman, technical wizard and musical visionary, record label master and collaborator with the biggest bands of the age. Spector left an indelible mark on American pop music, creating an iconic soundtrack that still attracts new listeners today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442267060
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	11/15/2017
Series:	Tempo: A Rowman & Littlefield Music Series on Rock, Pop, and Culture
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	286
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Sean MacLeod is a songwriter, music producer, and lecturer from Dublin, Ireland. He has been writing and producing music for more than twenty-five years and teaches courses in music and media at the Limerick College of Further Education. He wrote Leaders of the Pack: Girl Groups of the 1960s and Their Influence on Popular Culture in Britain and America (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Between Elvis and the Beatles

Chapter 1: To Know Him Is to Love Him: Early Life and Formative Years

Chapter 2: There’s No Other: Entrepreneur and Business Man

Chapter 3: Tomorrow’s Sound Today: Technical Wizard and Musical Visionary

Chapter 4: Pocket Symphonies for the Kids: Teenagers

Chapter 5: He’s A Rebel: Feminism and Civil Rights

Chapter 6: He Hit Me: Control and Power

Chapter 7: You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling: Collective Consciousness Versus Ego Consciousness

Chapter 8: He’s Sure the Boy I Love: Mentor and Protégés

Chapter 9: Get Back: Master and Servant

Chapter 10: End of a Century: Decline and Fall

Conclusion: The Genius that the Geniuses Go To

Editorial Reviews

08/14/2017
Music producer Phil Spector’s story is already very familiar and was covered so thoroughly in Mick Brown’s 2007 Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector that MacLeod’s adoring fan’s notes lack any startling revelations or new material. MacLeod (Leaders of the Pack: Girl Groups of the 1960s) dutifully chronicles Spector’s life and work from his early years and his growing love of music to his technical wizardry, work with the Beatles and John Lennon, and crash into disgrace after he was convicted of murdering actress Lana Clarkson in 2003. MacLeod stitches together a pastiche of quotations from other books and articles, and his generalizations about music and culture—such as Spector’s music bringing about more racial awareness—are unconvincing. MacLeod’s thin book certainly reminds readers of Spector’s musical genius and his lasting contributions to rock and roll and pop music, and it serves as a helpful introductory survey to the best work on Spector, but it lacks the depth and the insight to make it anything other than a superficial appraisal. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Phil Spector: Sound of the Sixties follows the ups and downs of Spector’s career as an entrepreneur and businessman, technical wizard and musical visionary, record label master, and collaborator with the biggest bands of the age.

The Beat (UK)

Sean MacLeod’s book underscores the importance of Phil Spector’s musical journey as the key producer of the twentieth century. It places his work in a wider social context and details the torments and triumphs that drove him to become the inventive genius who set the standard for others to follow

Kingsley Abbott

A fascinating read.. .. Sean MacLeod brings to life every step of Spector’s creation of the Wall of Sound—and what followed. MacLeod details an exposé of a talented musician, creative genius, technical innovator, and manipulative social misfit’s successful rise from immigrant roots and a dysfunctional family to his eventual demise in a pointless and murderous end game.

Jerry Burgan

The American music scene was in rough shape at the end of the 1950s. Elvis was in the army; Buddy Holly was dead; Chuck Berry was in prison; Little Richard had retired. There was a big hole in pop music, and music producer Phil Spector filled it in the 1960s and ’70s, with girl bands, new sounds, and big hits (the Righteous Brothers’ 'You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’' and the Beatles’ 'The Long and Winding Road,' to name but two). In this insightful book, the author traces Spector’s career from fame to obscurity to eccentricity to seclusion to imprisonment (he was convicted of murder in 2009). MacLeod’s approach is to look at Spector’s life as a whole and not to focus on the legal case; he’s out to give Spector his due as a musical genius, a man who richly deserved his legendary status.... [M]usic fans will be fascinated.

Booklist

Sean MacLeod thoroughly covers all bases in the Spector myth. Not only are Spector’s legendary productions examined in full, their influence is also discussed in a wider cultural and social context. As such, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in the Tycoon of Teen and his fabled Wall of Sound

the Spector & Wall of Sound music blog Cuecastanets.wordpress.com

The American music scene was in rough shape at the end of the 1950s. Elvis was in the army; Buddy Holly was dead; Chuck Berry was in prison; Little Richard had retired. There was a big hole in pop music, and music producer Phil Spector filled it in the 1960s and ’70s, with girl bands, new sounds, and big hits (the Righteous Brothers’ 'You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’' and the Beatles’ 'The Long and Winding Road,' to name but two). In this insightful book, the author traces Spector’s career from fame to obscurity to eccentricity to seclusion to imprisonment (he was convicted of murder in 2009). MacLeod’s approach is to look at Spector’s life as a whole and not to focus on the legal case; he’s out to give Spector his due as a musical genius, a man who richly deserved his legendary status.... [M]usic fans will be fascinated.

Booklist