Phil Spector Has Died At 81

TMZ says that Phil Spector, convicted murderer of Lana Clarkson and music producer, died yesterday at a hospital in California. Phil reportedly died of COVID-19 complications. He was 81.

Phil had been locked up at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton, CA after he was found guilty of second-degree murder in 2009 for shooting and killing Lana Clarkson at his home in 2003. It was the second time that Phil was tried for the murder of Lana Clarkson. The first one ended with a hung jury. Phil got 19 years to life in prison and was up for parole in 2024. But about four weeks ago, he caught Coronavirus in prison, and after a stay in the hospital, he was doing better and sent back to his prison cell, but then relapsed and died in the hospital. And just like that, Mossimo Giannulli and R. Kelly forwarded the story about Phil Spector catching COVID in prison to their lawyers in their never-ending bid to get out of the clink.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation confirmed Phil’s death in a statement, but didn’t mention coronavirus:

“California Health Care Facility inmate Phillip Spector was pronounced deceased of natural causes at 6:35 p.m. on Saturday, January 16, 2021, at an outside hospital. His official cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner in the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office.”

Phil Spector was born on December 26, 1939 in the Bronx. After Phil’s father Benjamin Spector died by suicide, his mother Bertha moved the family to Los Angeles and he later graduated from Fairfax High School. Fairfax High is where Phil met the members of his first group, the Teddy Bears. Phil was the guitarist and back-up singer for the group and wrote their biggest hit To Know Him Is To Love Him, which was re-recorded in 1987 by three flawless diamonds of music: Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris.

In 1960, Phil co-founded Philles Records. Phil was able to get The Crystals to sign on to his label, and one of the first songs he produced for them, the fucked-up domestic abuse anthem He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss) was a flop. But The Crystals later got a #1 hit with He’s A Rebel.

Phil continued to produce tracks for his other artists, Darlene Love, and The Ronnettes who delivered the hit, which Phil co-wrote, Be My Baby in 1963:

Phil also claimed he produced Unchained Melody for The Righteous Brothers, but Bill Medley of The Righeous Brothers claimed that was a lie and Bill is the one who produced it.

Phil co-wrote and produced River Deep-Mountain High for Ike and Tina Turner in 1966, and when it didn’t become the huge hit that Phil thought it would be, he temporarily exited stage left of the music industry. Phil married The Ronnettes’ lead singer Ronnie Crawford, who we now know as Ronnie Spector, in 1968. They adopted a son, Donté Phillip Spector, together, and two years after that, Phil “surprised” Ronnie by adopting twins, Louis and Gary. As Ronnie wrote in her memoirs, Be My Baby, her marriage to Phil was pure Hell. Ronnie wrote that Phil was a controlling torture monster who mentally and physically abused her, including keeping a glass-topped gold coffin in their basement and telling her he would display her body in there if she ever left him. Phil also wouldn’t let Ronnie perform and confiscated her shoes to keep from escaping their house. With the help of her mother, Ronnie finally got away, running away barefoot from the house. They divorced in 1974, and in the divorce settlement, Ronnie gave custody of their children and all her future record earnings to Phil because she says he threatened to hire a hitman to kill her.

When Phil came back to music, he produced John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band, George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, and Let It Be, the last album released by The Beatles in 1970. Phil then produced The Ramones’ fifth album End Of The Century, which came out in 1980, and Johnny Ramone later said that making it was a nightmare. Dee Dee Ramone claimed that Phil held him at gunpoint, which Marky Ramone denied. It’s also been alleged that he held a gun to Leonard Cohen and fired a gun in the studio while working with John Lennon. Debbie Harry also said that during a meeting with Phil in the late-1970s, he pulled out a gun and pretended to fire it in her boot.

Phil, who created “The Wall Of Sound” (basically when musicians play the same part or instruments at the same time, creating an echo chamber), was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1989.

On February 2, 2003, actress Lana Clarkson was shot in Phil’s mansion after meeting him that night at the House of Blues, where she worked. She was only 40 years old. Phil denied shooting Lana and said her death was an “accidental suicide.” That explanation was as WTF as the wigs he wore during his trial, including that electrocuted dandelion wig. Al Pacino put a “tumbleweed after an Ogilvie home perm gone wrong” wig on his head to play Phil Spector in the 2013 HBO movie about Phil’s first murder trial.

After Phil was convicted of murdering Lana, her mother Donna Clarkson filed a civil suit against Phil and his insurance company. They later settled out of court.

For those mourning the loss of Phil Spector, please don't forget my friend Lana Clarkson he murdered. A photo I took of her in the Hollywood Hills circa 1990. pic.twitter.com/mZUmKHDJy8

— Kevin Abosch (@kevinabosch) January 17, 2021

Pic: ABC