Disgraceland

by Jake Brennan

  Her casket was engraved with what might have been the most poignant lines she ever rapped: “Dreams are hopeless aspirations in hopes of coming true / Believe in yourself / The rest is up to me and you.”

  Chapter 10

  Phil Spector

  Phil Spector’s nasally voice sang through the crackle of the Pac Bell telephone line. On the other end, sixteen-year-old Annette Kleinbard, the singer in his group the Teddy Bears, was unimpressed. But Phil was undeterred. He hung up and beat a hasty retreat to his bedroom at 726 North Hayworth in Los Angeles’s Fairfax neighborhood, slammed the door shut so his overbearing mom would get the picture and leave him alone. He proceeded to bat the song’s chords around the neck of his Gibson acoustic guitar while the melody to the song he was trying to finish writing banged around in his brain. Finally, exhausted and having made little progress, he passed out on his fully made bed, completely clothed, guitar at his side.

  The dream was intense.

  It’s raining. Hard like it always is in the dream. And it’s Phil at his dad’s grave. It’s the funeral all over again but it isn’t 1949, it’s present day, 1958, and Phil is no longer a nine-year-old. He’s eighteen. As he is in real life, but unlike in real life, in his dream Phil is already a success. He’s dressed for the part of an earth-shaking music man. His style is part hepcat, part greaser. The funeral guests all know who he is, but he can’t make out their faces. Some approach him, but Phil’s bodyguards—yes, bodyguards—keep them away.

  He’s staring at his father’s headstone. His mother is seated next to him. She leans over and whispers to him that she will never forgive Phil for what his father did—sucked on the end of a carbon monoxide–filled hose until the lights went out in the Bronx. The words stung. So did the grief. It overwhelmed him at times. The grief put him on an emotional wave of extremes: one moment higher than the Hollywood hills, and the next lower than the rats that scurried shamefully over the New York City street corners he spent his early childhood on. Phil held focus on the headstone and concentrated. He tried hard to make out the inscription;

  TO KNOW HIM WAS TO LOVE HIM.

  Phil shot up, awake, in his bed. Sweat covering his body. So much sweat that he thought for a second he’d pissed himself. No matter. He grabbed his guitar and strummed the chords to the song he was trying to impress Annette with:

  Open D major. Then the trusty A7. He walked his finger up to the B minor chord, picking out the bass notes in the process. Then to the G.

  Again.

  And then he started singing the same line he’d sang to Annette over the phone but substituted the word was with is, shifting the tense from the past to the present and thus completely altering the song’s sentiment. It was no longer a mixed-up kid’s dark lament of a dead parent, it was relatable teenage heartache.

  “To Know Him Is to Love Him,” well, that’s saying something. We all knew him, Phil thought. Or at least the girls at Fairfax High knew him. He was the guy in the hall with the letter jacket and the big smile. Kinda boring. Totally sweet. Always there when you needed him.

  Phil filled in some lines over the chord progression:

  To know, know, know him is to love, love, love him

  Just to see him smile, makes my life worthwhile.

  The chorus wasn’t for Phil or his dad. It was for them, those girls. It was all they were going to focus on, anyway.

  He knew what those kids wanted: He had been studying them from the outside, looking in. Ever since his mother uprooted young Phil and his elder sister, Shirley, from the Bronx to California, he hadn’t fit in. You can take the boy out of the Bronx, but you can’t take the Bronx out of the boy, especially the Bronx accent, which in Phil’s case was filtered through an especially nasally voice. It’s never easy being the new kid, but when you’re the new kid, and your voice is the type that whatever bully coined the term pipsqueak had in mind, then it’s especially difficult. So Phil didn’t contribute. Didn’t speak up all that often. Instead, he observed, like any great writer. But Phil’s time to share his observations with his peers eventually came, and he shared through song. He would let teenage America have that chorus to themselves. It was his gift.

  The verses on the other hand. They were all his:

  Everyone says there’ll come a day when I’ll walk alongside of him

  Yes, just to know him is to love him.

  Phil was speaking to his dad. It was his way of not letting his dad leave. For everyone else it was a pop song. And it was perfect for its day, sentimental like the Pat Boone and Perry Como hits that reached back to the postwar cultural safety net that parents could easily fall into but imbued with the rock ’n’ roll backseat teenage yearning of the Everly Brothers and Ricky Nelson that made kids want to jump out of their PF Flyers. Phil, still just a kid himself, focused on the yearning part. More specifically, he focused on his lust as he lip-synced the song’s lyrics and avoided eye contact with the buxomy blond dancers swaying in the audience in front of him on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.

  Phil on guitar, beside Annette singing, was a boy brimming with lust. Since the release of “To Know Him Is to Love Him” and its chart-climbing success, the world had opened up to Phil. He sang the backups, eagerly anticipating the postshow party where he’d get up close and personal with the Bandstand dancers despite the fact that physically, he was a far cry from the Troy Donahue type he’d written about in his No. 1 single. Yes, No. 1. Suicidal grief masquerading as unrequited teenage love rocketed Phil Spector’s Teddy Bears to the top of the charts, but he still cut a diminutive figure on top of the bandstand. Five foot five, barely taller than Annette, and a square-looking haircut that wanted to be a rock ’n’ roll pompadour but instead looked like a boyish flattop, largely because of his rapidly thinning hair. He was more nerd without a fashion sense than rebel without a cause. And his outfit, more Canter’s busboy than James Dean; a lame boxy-white blazer that Phil clearly had trouble filling out, along with a flattened Western-style bow tie. Hardly the television debut of the next Elvis Presley, whose physical presence and prowess was so impressive that Phil was compelled to take the name of his group from Elvis’s recent hit “Teddy Bear” despite the fact that Elvis—unlike Phil—couldn’t write his own songs.

  But Phil Spector could write his own songs. And he’d write lots after “To Know Him Is to Love Him.” Many of them would become the most culturally consequential pop songs in history and would make Phil Spector more money than he’d ever be able to spend in one lifetime. He would become a millionaire by the time he was twenty-two. And because he had made all of this money himself, he reasoned that doing everything himself was the move. Writing the songs wasn’t enough; he had to produce them as well. And since he couldn’t trust the songs he had written and produced to any old record label, he started his own company, Philles Records, after cutting his teeth as a staff producer at Dune Records. He started the label with fellow producer Lester Sill, but Phil would buy out Sill within a year. Partners were dead notes. Phil would rather bet on himself, play the open chords.

  Phil was shouting over the sound of the jet’s turbo compressors and completely ignoring the flight’s stewardess. He was trying to make a point to his favorite Beatle. “Look, John, baby, you’re gonna be all right. We don’t all carry guns, okay? Besides, Kennedy couldn’t keep his little Irish schmeckel in his pants and everyone knew it, okay? You brought your wife and your baby with you. You’re gonna be fine. As long as Paul learns all the words to ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas.’”

  Phil kept fast-talking John, denying him a chance to laugh at the joke.

  “I’m just teasing you, Johnny baby. Don’t look at me like that. I’m telling you, you’re gonna be fine in the States. And you’re gonna be safe. Just keep your little schmeckel in Cynthia’s purse.”

  “Who said anything about it being little, Phil?” John deadpanned.

  Phil Spector, the so-called “first tycoon of teen” roared over the sounds of the Boeing 707 en route from London
’s Heathrow airport to the recently named John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City on February 7, 1964.

  He stopped and spoke to John as he paced up and down the aisles. The Beatles would later dub Phil “the man who walked to America” because he paced so much on that plane ride.

  Ringo was giddy. Grab-assing with the stewardesses. George was quiet. Up front talking to the pilot. Paul was in all seriousness trying to learn “The Yellow Rose of Texas” on John’s acoustic, and John, per usual, was tense. Phil’s pacing probably didn’t help. The Beatles’ skyrocketing success in the States on the heels of Kennedy’s assassination had him worried about his band’s first trip to the United States.

  So it was left to Phil Spector, the producer and songwriter of the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” the earth-shattering smash hit that rattled the creative cages of the most successful musicians on both sides of the pond, to convince John Lennon—one-quarter of arguably the most popular group on the planet—to cool out and get ready to enjoy himself in America. If nothing else, Phil’s own nervous energy served as a barometer for John. At least he wasn’t as high-strung as Phil.

  John was listening, though. He respected Phil. Phil was smart. His talent was immense and obvious.

  It’s no stretch to say that Phil Spector was a genius. One of those rare talents that created something completely new, almost out of thin air. Phil Spector’s recording style was something that had never been heard before in popular music, or anywhere else for that matter. It was a “wall of sound,” and Phil held the patent. Drawing on the massive lush orchestral sounds of classical music and funneled through the reality of having to record in tight studio confines, the result was a dense and layered sound that was exhilarating coming out of the tiny jukebox and car stereo speakers of the day.

  Phil took it one step further and invented “groups” out of thin air to suit the sounds he was creating. Normally, to that point anyway, a professional songwriter would write a song. Then the song’s publisher, the record label, the hired producer, and to some extent the songwriter would find a singer or a group that was either a known commodity with an audience or a new star on the come-up whose future they were investing in. That song would then be given to the singer to record with the producer and eventually released through the record label.

  What Phil did was cut everyone out of the equation. He was the first producer of note to also write the songs. And he would not be slowed or deterred by the complications of finding or working with existing stars. To Phil Spector, making music, making hits, wasn’t necessarily about the singer or the song. It was about the producer. The man who could pull the track together and craft it into a hit by any means necessary. When a singer or a group couldn’t be found in short order, Phil would just invent one. Literally. Out of thin air. We have this great song I wrote but no group to record it? Doesn’t matter—pull some backing singers in from the session down the hall, slap a name on them, something like “Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans,” get the song on tape, then wax, then ship it, get it played on radio, and voila—a top-ten hit. Oh, there’s another song, “He’s a Rebel,” being recorded over at Liberty Records and it’s got real potential but someone else wrote it? The demo sounds perfect for the Crystals, the girl group I’ve been riding up the charts with lately. The Crystals need to record it before Liberty makes it a hit first. Oh the Crystals are in LA and can’t get to NYC anytime soon for the session? Just as well. The song is a beast. The melody likely isn’t one the Crystals will be able to handle in the studio anyway. Okay, no sweat. I’ll get my girl, Darlene Love, and her group, the Blossoms, to record it on the quick. Darlene is in town and she can sing anything. Fuck Liberty. We’ll get it released before them. And you know what? Forget about the Blossoms. They’re not rocketing out of my stable of stars as quickly as the Crystals, so even though the Blossoms recorded the tune, let’s credit it to the Crystals because they’re more popular and have a better chance at success and because I’m the producer and I know what’s best and voila—a No. 1 hit.

  It’s hard to argue with success. Phil’s unconventional approach to talent and recording made him the most successful pop music producer on the planet. Between 1961 and 1966 he charted more than twenty top-forty hits with acts like the aforementioned Crystals, the Righteous Brothers, and the Ronettes.

  The Ronettes, for Phil, were his greatest creation, and their smash hit “Be My Baby” made him in the eyes of many of his contemporaries. Not only was it a hit upon its release in 1963, its sound was groundbreaking. If ever there was a recording to define the “wall of sound,” it was “Be My Baby.” The recording relied on a mass of instrumentation: the biggest of beats with multiple guitars, pianos, and horns all layered on top of one another, and Phil’s favorite new young female singer, Ronnie Spector, sailing over the top of it all with her sultry vocals.

  The song hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was unavoidable in 1963. The Beatles were obsessed. As were the Rolling Stones, whom Phil and the Ronettes had just wrapped up a headlining tour with—the Stones opening for them—back in the UK. Phil, with his knack for being in the right place at the right time, found his way onto the Beatles’ first flight to America, Pan Am 101, and did his best to convince his new friend John that not all Americans were gun-crazed lunatics.

  But Phil was himself a gun-crazed American. A couple years earlier, back in Philly after the Bandstand taping, Phil hit a public bathroom in the bus terminal. He was still in his stage duds looking very much out of place while relieving himself into one of those long, low, trough-like public urinals. From behind him, four street toughs bellowed out insults.

  “Nice jacket,” Tough No. 1 muttered.

  “What are you, some type of Cowboy Shrimp?” Tough No. 2 asked. The rest laughed.

  Phil, still facing the urinal, his penis in hand, turned his head over his right shoulder to assess just how deep the shit that he was about to be in was.

  “Got something to say, Cowboy Shrimp?”

  Phil said nothing. Just turned his head back to the wall. His urine reversed its course back up into his bladder. Phil was frozen with fear.

  “I’m talking to you, Cowboy Shrimp. Don’t ignore me!”

  Phil kept quiet and tried to casually zip himself up. When he was done he turned around, kept his head down, and tried to briskly walk by them. Tough No. 1 threw his beefy shoulder into Phil, nearly knocking him off his feet and into Tough No. 2.

  Tough No. 2: “You trying to start something, Cowboy Shrimp?”

  Phil’s eyes darted toward the exit door. He made a hasty break for it but it was no use. The four toughs were on him immediately. They threw him to the ground and laid a beating on him he’d never forget. Phil’s anger at the situation was so intense he was nearly immune to the physical pain of the beating: the aching ribs from their kicks, the splintering headache from the round of punches his head endured. He made the decision right then and there: Never again would he go anywhere without protection.

  They called it a “Peacemaker” but Phil never knew why. It was a violent instrument, the .45 Colt, a single-action revolver originally designed for standard military service back in the nineteenth century. The Peacemaker would come to be known as the “gun that won the West,” but to Phil Spector, it just looked cool. Like something the Lone Ranger would use. It was Phil’s first gun. He took it with him everywhere.

  He gave John a look. “Hey, John, get a load of this.” Phil, now in the seat on the Boeing next to John, hunched over and reached into his carry-on, pulling up by the walnut grip his fully loaded, blued .45 Colt. He kept himself hunched over with his hand still holding the gun in the bag, just high enough to give his favorite Beatle a real glimpse at his added security.

  “Fuck, Phil. See, all you Americans are crazy.”

  “Nah, just careful.”

  John slid easily into his well-rehearsed John Wayne impersonation and replied back to Phil in his deepest Duke baritone, “Now you put that away before little Rin
go sees it and gets even more excited.”

  Phil put the gun back into his bag and got up to pace again, but it wouldn’t be the last time Phil would flash his steel to a musician.

  Leonard Cohen, Dee Dee Ramone, and once again John Lennon would all—in later years—claim that Spector pulled his gun on them. But their stories were child’s play compared to the tales of horror later told by the women in Phil Spector’s life.

  Phil Spector showing John Lennon his gun, on the Beatles’ first flight to America.

  “Listen to that! The Righteous Brothers!!! ‘You Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.’ Hear that? Hear that voice? Listen to how big it is. Listen to how up front it is in the mix. Wait for it…Wait! There. The strings in the back. They’re there but they don’t take away from Bill’s voice. You know why? Because Bill could lay it on. THICK. And because Bobby wasn’t piping along with him and stepping on the vocal. Bobby was the sidecar. Bill was the tumbler. Rollin’ and tumblin’, baby. Listen to his voice effortlessly roll over the mix. Not even that orchestral percussion could step on it. Bill Medley had it. I had to sideline Bobby Hatfield. Bobby never forgave me. The song made him very rich, but still I’m the bad guy. What did he care, anyway? I made him more money with that song than he’d ever make in his life, and you know why? Because it didn’t need a tenor. It wasn’t a duet. It needed that big baritone that Bill had and that Bobby didn’t. That deep, lonesome voice that sounds like it’s whispering to you on a long, quiet drive; that is anchored by deep, swirling, emotional turmoil that the orchestra behind it is stewing up. IT WASN’T A FUCKING DUET, BOBBY! I’M SORRY! Now take your check and go to the bank!”