By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES – Rock producer Phil Spector, who changed the sound of pop music in the 1960s with his “Wall of Sound” recordings and was convicted of murder for the 2003 murder of a Hollywood actress, has died at age 81 of COVID-19, according to authorities and media reports.
Spector produced 20 top 40 hits between 1961 and 1965 and went on to work with the Beatles on “Let It Be,” as well as Leonard Cohen, the Righteous Brothers and Ike and Tina Turner.
He was diagnosed with COVID-19 four weeks ago and transferred to a hospital from his prison cell, where he had been serving a 19 years-to-life sentence for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson, the Daily Mail newspaper said.
In a brief statement, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said Spector died of natural causes at an outside hospital, and that his official cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner in the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office.
Clarkson, 40, was killed by a shot to the mouth, fired from Spector’s gun in the foyer of his mock castle home outside Los Angeles on Feb. 3, 2003. The two met hours earlier at a Hollywood nightclub.
Spector was convicted of second-degree murder in a second trial, after the first trial deadlocked in 2007. The case drew worldwide interest because Spector was widely known as a rock music pioneer. In 1989, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
He began his career as a performer, recording a hit single as a teen with his band the Teddy Bears, but found his true calling as the producing genius behind 1960s girl groups such as Crystals and the Ronettes.
His signature production technique was the “Wall of Sound,” which layered pop and even classical instruments into a full, lush sound that was new to pop records. He called it “a Wagnerian approach to rock & roll: little symphonies for the kids.”
Born Harvey Phillip Spector on Dec. 26, 1939, he grew up in New York City and formed the Teddy Bears with three high school friends. They scored a hit single in 1958 with a song titled after the inscription on his father’s headstone: “To Know Him Is to Love Him.”
