Phil Spector: from jukebox to jury

At the age of 23, Phil Spector was the most successful rock'n'roll producer in America. In the 18 months since founding the Philles record label in the autumn of 1961, he had produced 10 Top 40 hits, four of them Top 10, and one - "He's a Rebel" - a US No 1 smash. With his "little symphonies for the kids", he had shaped a palette of teenage yearning, desire and heartache; the ecstasy of a good-night kiss, the agony of being too young to be married; innocent and knowing, neon-bright and dungeon-dark all at the same time. He had alchemised the base metal of his own pain, alienation and resentment into something fabulous, mythical and beautiful. The schoolyard loser, the nerd, the loner, was now a figure of power and substance.

He dressed in bespoke suits from Sy Devore (the Hollywood tailor who styled himself as "the man who dressed the Rat Pack"), silk waistcoats, ruffle-front shirts, bootlace ties, pointy-toe stack-heel boots. He had taken to sporting a neat little goatee beard, of the kind favoured by Ahmet Ertegun (of Atlantic Records) and (the songwriter) Mike Stoller, and dousing himself in expensive Caesar cologne. He walked with a bantam-cock strut. To the outside world, Spector might have been a small, strange, disturbing presence; but in the studio he was a god, shaping his own universe.

"What Phil had was a vision," Ertegun said of his friend and former apprentice. "All good producers have that, but he had it more than most. You have to go in there with an idea of what you want, otherwise what the hell are you doing in there? It's like I've told some of my groups, 'What would you do if you didn't have a producer? You'd have to get somebody else to roll the joints.'"

Ertegun's partner, Jerry Wexler, brought a more analytical eye to how Spector's approach was revolutionising the role of the producer in pop music. Before Spector, Wexler argued, there had been two kinds of record producer. The first was what Wexler called "the documentarian", like Leonard Chess, the founder of Chess Records in Chicago, who in the late 1950s took the raw urban blues of performers like Muddy Waters and transplanted them from the bar to the studio, simply recording them as Muddy played them.

The second category, into which Wexler put himself, was what he described as "the servant of the project", whose job was to enhance; to find the right song, the right arrangement, the right band and the right studio; in short, to do whatever was necessary to bring out the best in the artist.

Spector, said Wexler, had created a third category: "the producer as star, as artist, as unifying force". To Wexler, every Spector record was "an intaglio", an intricate design carved by a single hand into the surface of a stone. The rhythm track, the sound, the background vocal, the lead vocal - every aspect of the design was of Spector's making.

But Wexler was no great enthusiast of the essential element of Spector's Wall of Sound. The way in which the individual ingredients were melted together into what Wexler described as "a fascinating treacle", to a point where it was impossible to tell which instrument was which, offended Wexler's purist principles. "That gargantuan leakage, everything leaking out of everyone else's mike, was something we guarded against fanatically at Atlantic. To me it was like a muted roar. I didn't like it, and I still don't like it. But I recognised its incredible, incredible value. Phil was making hits."

Wexler also recognised some essential, deeper truth in the way Spector made records. "Rather than develop his artists' careers, Phil developed himself. Rather than serve the artist, the artist served Phil."

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Among the Los Angeles music-business cognoscenti, Spector's sessions became the place to be. He enjoyed an audience, and the tiny booth at Gold Star studios would often be crowded with visitors - record executives, musicians, friends and hangers-on - all eager to witness his Midas touch at first hand.

But, for all his braggadocio posturing, it seemed that no amount of success could assuage Spector's constant, nagging feelings of insecurity. Spector would sometimes confide his doubts to his old friend Nino Tempo.

"I remember when he'd had four or five hits in a row - something that hadn't been done too often in those days - and he said to me: 'How long can I go on without making a flop?' I said: 'What difference does it make? You're talented enough; you'll always make hits. So you only have three out of five, or two out of five. What's so terrible about that?' But Phil needed five out of five. The thought of anything he made not being a hit was painful to him. There was always this thought in his mind, 'How much longer can I keep doing this?' And he was pushing and pushing himself. He couldn't bear it."

1969

George Harrison had been so delighted with Spector's work on Let It Be that he had no hesitation in inviting him to produce his first post-Beatles solo album. Nor did Harrison have any shortage of songs to bring to the project. Having long been frustrated by being fobbed off with the inclusion of only one or two of his compositions on Beatles albums, Harrison had accumulated a formidable catalogue of work - the ensuing album, All Things Must Pass, would comprise 23 of his songs.

For the first few weeks things went well, then Spector began to grow impatient. Harrison - as much a perfectionist as Spector, and now particularly anxious that his first solo project should be as perfect as possible - constantly fretted over his vocals and his guitar-playing. Usually, it was Spector who kept people waiting. Now the boot was on the other foot.

The more Harrison prevaricated, the more irritated Spector became - at Harrison, and everything around him. He couldn't sleep in his hotel. England was dank and draughty. He hated the food. He felt perpetually homesick. He hated the television: he phoned a friend in California and complained that he'd been "watching someone painting a wall for six hours". His growing boredom and unhappiness now began to manifest themselves in another way. He started drinking.

Spector had always been abstemious in his habits. Drugs exaggerated his perpetual fear of being out of control. He would occasionally smoke a cigarette, or more likely a cigarillo, but it was not a habit. He drank sparingly. If musicians turned up at his sessions drunk or stoned he would become apoplectic. It offended his perfectionism.

But now he started drinking in earnest himself, gulping down Courvoisier in the long hours as the sessions ground on. He would later explain to a Los Angeles Times journalist that he was "letting his hair down" after all the hard work of the 1960s.

"I ran a company all that time. I wouldn't drink, do drugs, nothing. I lived and died with every record. I felt invincible and scared at the same time. I was working 24 hours a day. I thought sleep was a waste of time. I didn't even think about drugs and I never had any alcohol, to any extent, until... I went to England to work with George Harrison and I started getting bored."

Spector would quickly go from being a garrulous drunk to an unpleasant one. Alcohol, according to one friend, was "poison to his system. Phil would have two drinks and he'd become Mr Hyde. It was like he'd taken some kind of potion. He would turn on people and be horrible."

The longer the sessions wore on, and the more he drank, the more his mood began to sour. On one occasion, Spector was so drunk he fell off his chair, injuring his arm so badly he was obliged to absent himself from the studio for a few days.

1970

Tony King, who as a young promotions man working for Decca had been responsible for looking after Spector on his first visit to London in 1964, was working for Apple, and arrived in LA with the task of keeping an eye on John Lennon. King was shocked at the change that had come over Spector in the years since he had last seen him. The charming, funny and thoughtful man who'd led The Ronettes singing in the Strand Palace Hotel, who'd sent King sweaters as a gift of thanks, had vanished. "He'd lost that boyish, mischievous personality that I first encountered. There was this slightly wild side to him, that made you feel you had to be careful."

King sensed that Spector was "suffering from having been big, and no longer being as big as he was, but still wanting everybody to think he was. So there was all this grandiose posturing going on - very LA. Very Phil-insecure - a lot of challenging remarks, put-downs, which I found very uncomfortable to be around."

King was staying with an old friend, the songwriter and musician Mike Hazelwood, who Lennon had invited to play guitar on some sessions. King made a point of keeping away from the studio, but he began to suspect something was amiss one evening when he noticed Hazelwood packing a bottle of vodka into his guitar case, like a gunman packing his piece before a showdown. "I said, 'What's that for, Mike?' And he said, 'These are pretty wild sessions; they get pretty out there.'"

Elton John came to town, and one night King took him to visit the studio. "We went in and Phil was running around, spieling like a madman. John was trying to keep the situation under control, because by this stage Phil was the mad one and John didn't want Elton to think there were two madmen there. Elton was looking at me, kind of, 'Is this OK?' We stayed for a respectable amount of time, and when we left Elton looked at me and said, 'Is it always like that...?' We were both glad to get out."

In an attempt to lighten the mood, Spector took to turning up at the sessions in an assortment of costumes. The doctor's outfit was followed by a priest's cassock and then the dark glasses and white cane of a blind man. One evening he surprised everyone by walking into the crowded studio with an accordion and playing a wistful and note-perfect version of Al Jolson's "The Anniversary Song", which concluded to thunderous applause.

Paulette Brandt, Spector's PA, had a friend who happened to be dating Chuck Berry, one of Lennon's heroes. As a surprise treat, Paulette arranged for Berry to come to Spector's home to meet Lennon. But Spector insisted on playing his music so loudly that nobody could talk, and after a cursory exchange of pleasantries Berry left.

The interlude did nothing to ease the mounting tension between Spector and Lennon. One night, Spector arranged for the pair to meet at Gold Star to do some vocal overdubs. Lennon arrived, only to pass the evening with Gold Star's boss Stan Ross, waiting in vain for Spector to turn up. "We kept phoning saying, 'Where are you?'" Ross remembers. "And Phil'd say, 'I'll be there in 10 minutes.' And an hour later it'd be the same thing - 'I'll be there in 10 minutes.' At the end of the evening I said to John: 'It's been a pleasure and I'm sorry we couldn't do anything.' He said, 'He's a prick.' Next day I called Phil and asked him, 'What happened?' He said, 'Oh, I had problems and couldn't leave.' So tell us! But that would be too simple for Phil."

On another night, Lennon became so drunk that Spector was obliged to abandon the session altogether. With the help of George Brand, Spector's bodyguard, he bundled Lennon into a car to take him home.

"They got John upstairs into the bedroom," Lennon's PA and then lover, May Pang, remembers. "John was going, 'Come on, Phil, I love you,' in a drunken, melancholy way. And George was sitting on top of him. In John's mind, I think he thought he was getting into some kind of three-way sex situation. So he freaked out. They brought me upstairs and I was in shock to see that they'd tied John up. He was screaming at me. 'This is it!' I said. 'What did you guys do?' They said: 'Don't worry, he'll be OK, just let him sleep it off.'"

In November, the sessions were evicted from A&M after Jerry Moss, the head of the company, received reports that Spector had been waving a pistol around. The circus moved to another studio, the Record Plant.

It was there that Spector discharged a gun into the ceiling. "We were doing 'You Can't Catch Me'," Pang remembers. "Mal Evans [the Beatles' former roadie] was around, and I remember Phil's mother was in the control room - a very nice, well-dressed lady. And suddenly there was this 'pop!' Everybody went, 'What's that?' and crouched down - including his mother. I went for the door, and in the ante-room outside, Phil was holding a gun and Mal was reaching over saying, 'Give me that.' John was cowering with his hands over his ears. He was saying, 'Phil, if you're going to shoot me, shoot me; but don't fuck with me ears, I need them to listen with.' They'd been playing around and Phil kept hitting Mal with his hand, and he'd hurt his nose.

"Mal had complained, and, Phil being Phil, he had pulled out the gun. As he pulled it out, it went off. My thought was, Did he always have the safety off ? The next day John and I were having dinner and Mal came by and said: 'Here's the bullet from last night.' What bullet? Because all this time John and I thought they were blanks..."

2003

The details of what occurred on the evening of 2 February, and the early hours of 3 February 2003, would emerge over the next two years, from a combination of police evidence, the coroner's report, and testimony to the grand jury that would ultimately decide that Spector should stand trial, accused of the murder of Lana Clarkson.

At 7pm Spector walked out of his back door. He was wearing a black shirt and trousers and a white jacket, and carrying a briefcase, which he threw on to the back seat of the car before climbing in. He had a dinner date with a friend, Romy Davis. Romy had been a prom queen at Spector's school - the sort of girl he could only gaze at wistfully, from afar, as a schoolboy. But in recent years they had become friends.

Spector set off, driven by his "relief" chauffeur Adriano De Souza, to collect Davis to go to the Grill on the Alley, a Beverly Hills restaurant. Two hours later, Spector dropped off Davis at her home and instructed De Souza to return to the Grill. He had made another assignation: a waitress, Kathy Sullivan, was waiting for him outside. De Souza drove them first to Trader Vic's bar, and then to Dan Tana's restaurant, one of Spector's regular haunts. By now, Sullivan was complaining that she was tired and wanted to go home. But Spector evidently did not want the evening to end and insisted that they should go on to the House of Blues, where they arrived at 1.30am.

According to the police Spector had been drinking alcohol at each stop along the way, consuming three, possibly four daiquiri cocktails, as well as two navy grog cocktails, each containing three shots of different kinds of rum. De Souza said that he was "slurring his words".

Spector and Sullivan went inside. Lana Clarkson was waiting at her post at the entrance of the Foundation Room to greet new arrivals. There was a moment's confusion; Clarkson did not know or recognise Spector, and initially refused to let him in to the members-only area.

Spector began to complain loudly, and another House of Blues employee, Euphrates Lalondriz, came to smooth things over, telling Clarkson who Spector was and that he was to be treated "like Dan Aykroyd - like gold" (Aykroyd has a share in the club). Clarkson apologised to Spector, introduced herself, and then led him and Sullivan to a seating area within the Foundation Room known as the Buddha Room.

Spector ordered a shot of Bacardi 151 rum "straight up" from the waitress, Sophia Holguin. When Sullivan ordered only water, Spector grew angry, telling her to "get a fucking drink". Sullivan refused, and while Holguin was fetching the order, Spector told Sullivan, "That's it - you're going home." Spector called for Lana Clarkson and told her to walk Kathy to his car and tell De Souza to take her home, then return to collect Spector.

Meanwhile, Holguin returned with the order. Spector told her he didn't want "the fucking water" and called for his tab. He had bought an $8.50 alcoholic drink and a $5 water and left a tip of $450. After settling the bill, Spector tried to order another drink, but Holguin told him the bar was closed.

At around 2am, Lalondriz overheard Clarkson, over his headset, asking if she could accept an invitation from Spector to have a drink. Lalondriz heard the club manager tell her that she could not drink, but could sit down with Spector. Holguin saw Clarkson walk into the Buddha Room and talk to Spector for a few minutes. She then saw them walk out of the room together. House of Blues employee records show that Clarkson clocked out at 2.21am.

Two minutes later, De Souza, who was waiting outside, saw Spector emerge from the club. He seemed to be having difficulty walking, and was being helped by Clarkson. As De Souza opened the car door for him, Spector invited Clarkson to go home with him. She declined. Spector then offered her a lift to her car, which Clarkson accepted. During the drive, Spector continued to press his invitation, "More than once. Two, three times," according to De Souza. Finally, Clarkson relented.

At the House of Blues employee car park, Clarkson got into her car. Spector got out of the Mercedes, stumbled over to a stairwell to relieve himself, and then stumbled back to his car. De Souza could smell the alcohol from the back seat. De Souza and Spector now followed Clarkson to a side street off La Cienega Boulevard where she parked her car.

As Clarkson got into the Mercedes, she leaned forward to De Souza and told him, "This will be quick. Only one drink." Spector turned to her. "You don't need to talk to the driver."

At around 3am, the Mercedes drove through Spector's gates, and pulled to a halt. Spector and Clarkson got out and set off up the 88 steps towards the house. According to De Souza, Spector had some difficulty walking, and Clarkson was, "like, grabbing his arm and shoulder and helping him up the stairs". De Souza continued up the drive, parked at the rear of the house, and settled down to wait. Around 15 minutes later, Spector came out of the back door. According to De Souza, "he looked mad", and disoriented. De Souza asked him whether he wanted to collect his briefcase and a portable DVD player that he had left in the car. "No, no, no," said Spector - but then changed his mind and took the DVD player. De Souza followed him into the house and placed the briefcase in the hall. There was so sign of Clarkson.

For the next 90 minutes or so De Souza waited in the car. Then, shortly before 5am, he heard what he would later describe as a soft popping sound. De Souza, who had served in the Brazilian military, thought he recognised it as a gunshot. He got out of the car, but could see nothing amiss and returned to the Mercedes. It was then that Spector emerged from the back door. De Souza again got out of the car. Spector was still dressed in the clothes he had worn that evening - white jacket, black trousers and shirt; in his right hand was a revolver, which he was holding across his body. De Souza could see blood on the back of Spector's hand. It was at that point, according to De Souza, that Spector said, "I think I killed somebody." Looking past him into the hallway, De Souza could see Lana Clarkson, slumped in a chair with blood on her face. He asked: "What happened, sir?" Spector shrugged and said: "I don't know."

This is an edited extract from Mick Brown's Tearing Down the Wall of Sound, published by Bloomsbury on 2 April, priced £18.99. To order a copy for £16.99 (with free p&p) call Independent Books Direct on 08700 798 897, or visit www.independentbooksdirect.co.uk