POXV : Phil Spector "Back to Mono" Box set

be my baby
river deep mountain high
you've lost that lovin' feelin'
the best part of breaking up
da doo ron ron
baby i love you
i love how you love me
is this what i get for loving you?
unchained melody
he's sure the boy i love
then he kissed me
ebb tide
he hit me (it felt like a kiss)
to know him is to love him
[the good one i forgot about, probably another ronettes one]

that's a ficken bit unfair!
:(

"I Left a Woman Bleeding"
"Crumble and Fall"
"I Can Hear Gunfire"
"Good Shootin' Man"
"Here It Comes (And There You Go)"
"A Woman's Last Story"
"Tandoori Chicken Early, Target Practice Later"
"Lead is All I Have To Give"
"She'll Never Need More Than This"
"Hung for You"
"Flipped and Nutty"
"I Know Why"
"Why Don't You Write Me In Jail"

This album is fucking amazing. I'm thinking that this is one of the most overlooked albums of our times. Phil Spector's bizarre personal life has overshadowed how brilliant, soulful, and incredibly gorgeous this music is.

My list (probably would change from day to day):

1. Ben E King - "Spanish Harlem"
2. Gene Pitney - "Every Breath I Take"
3. Crystals - "He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)"
4. Crystals - "He's a Rebel"
5. Darlene Love - "(Today I Met) The Boy I'm Going to Marry"
6. Crystals - "Da Doo Ron Ron"
7. Ronettes - "Be My Baby"
8. Ronettes - "Baby I Love You"
9. Ronettes - "I Wonder"
10. Ronettes - "(The Best Part of) Breakin' Up"
11. Darlene Love - "Strange Love"
12. Ronettes - "Keep on Dancing"
13. Ronettes - "Walking in the Rain"
14. Righteous Brothers - "You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling"
15. Righteous Brothers - "Unchained Melody"

I never realized how big his impact on Brian Wilson was until I became familiar with the Ronette's stuff (take a listen to "(The Best Part of) Breakin' Up" if you don't believe me!). The guy was a genius; when I hear modern producers and even other dudes from his era, they just seem like rank amateurs in comparison.

this box set always makes me wonder what other Spector gems are out there that I haven't heard, or am not even aware of. I have never seen a complete discography, and everything from his peak is from a period during which most bands didn't really release proper "albums", making sorting out who recorded and released what when really difficult... a lot of my favorite stuff on this box set seem like such bizarre little one-offs - Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, the Modern Folk Quartet, Gene Pitney's "Hold Me Tight" etc.

yeah, i agree Shakey -- would be cool if there was a comprehensive, chronological kind of thing, like those recent James Brown sets. but given spector's uhh public persona at the moment, that's probably not too likely to happen anytime soon.

Yeah, I really wonder about it. I like almost all of this set, and I know he was really cranking out stuff in the early to mid 60s. Will that stuff ever be compiled? Sorely missing from this set is the infamous "Do the Screw"!

what made me think of it was comparing the Ronettes' tracks on the box set with this other Ronettes' "greatest hits" comp I have ... the greatest hits has a bunch of songs that aren't on the box set (I wonder to what extent they were even "hits"), like "You Came, You Saw, You Conquered". And then some songs that are credited to "the Veronicas" on the box set are credited to the Ronettes on the greatest hits. It just makes me think there's all sorts of uncollected stuff out there.

x-post

my box set has "You Came You Saw You Conquered" on it (track 16, disc 3)

also, mine only has "So Young" credited to Veronica (not the Veronicas).

like, what is this other Modern Folk Quartet song "Night Time Girl"...?

http://dumbangelmag.blogspot.com/2008/03/rot-on-sunset-strip-book-tour-diary.html

Who knows! I think Phil Spector tended to only do the singles, and was not interested in doing album tracks, at least at that time. There might be non-Spector tracks for a lot of those artists floating around out there. This might be one of them... or maybe not!

sorry I didn't mean "You Came, You Saw, You Conquered", mixed that up with "Everything Under the Sun". Other stuff I don't remember being on the box set: "Here I Sit" (this is a great one), "Born to Be Together", "How Does It Feel", "So Young" (covered by the Beach Boys!)...

well I figure there had to be a b-side to "This Could Be the Night", right?

Hmmm. Yeah, "Born to Be Together" and "So Young" are on this, but not the others. Perhaps I should check those tracks out. BTW, there's a very good stereo (!!!) version of the Ronettes greatest hits floating around out these in P2P land. I don't know where it would have come from (must be some studio trickery), but it's pretty remarkable.

Oh, that stereo Ronette's album is detailed here:
http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:gnfqxq9jldhe

i think i read also that spector would try out a bunch of different vocalists on various tracks, which would be interesting to hear too. darlene love singing "be my baby" or something ...

you know what's funny is that I heard the original version of "Be My Baby" that was recorded by Ellie Greenwich, the co-writer, before Phil Spector's version-- possibly as a demo-- and it was an awful, awful song. Phil Spector pretty much was the visionary behind that song, and if you ask me, very little credit can go to the songwriters behind it. It's all Spector's magic.

stereo?! seems wrong. I have this one and love it plenty:
http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:dcfexq85ldfe

stereo?! seems wrong.

yeah, i know it 'seems' wrong, but it's pretty fucking great in reality. it really brings it to life-- more so.

this thread reminds me I need to get Death of a Ladies Man

I've been quite curious about that album since I read the excellent and haunting biography "Tearing Down the Wall of Sound." Wanted to hear it before buying, but haven't seen it on P2P.

Speaking of Phil Spector books, here's one that you quant-jocks will absolutely LOVE:
http://www.amazon.com/Data-Manipulation-with-R/dp/B001BTBN1O/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221522499&sr=8-14

haha I love data manipulation!

haven't grabbed and listened yet

funny, because I am currently using R for building data regression models, and I might end up buying that book sometime!

hmm this Death of a Ladies Man is... odd. Lots of flanged/phased guitars. Cohen sounds totally nasal, almost like a litle kid (or like Spector himself?). Haven't listened to the whole thing yet. First impression - not as fun as Ramones "End of the Century".

that link didn't work for me, for some reason.

reading the description of the recording of that album in the "Tearing Down the Wall of Sound" book, it's half comical, half harrowing. It describes Spector getting smashed on bottle after bottle of Manischewitz and getting Cohen to record his vocal tracks at gunpoint.

try this one

don't forget to copy the password

Cohen, if I remember correctly, says he hated the album. Spector claimed it was "good fucking music" (emphasis on 'fucking'). Allmusic has much praise for the album, saying that it takes some time, but it "might be [Cohen's] masterpiece."

http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:kjftxqt5ld6e

i'll rep for Death of A Ladies Man -- definitely one of Cohen's funniest records (and that's saying something, the guy is hilarious). It's a very 70s record, but in a good way. Kind of captures a unique sexual revolution-related male terror in a way that no other record of its time does. And I really like the 70s version of the Wall of Sound -- a big mess, no doubt, but a glorious mess. And what other records boast Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan as backup singers?

but yeah, Leonard seems to hate this record. not sure what he was expecting when he signed on to make a record with phil spector ...

don't get me wrong I'm intrigued by it - I love the whole idea behind it, the cover photo, the lyrical conceits, the odd pairing. I just gotta settle in with it a little bit.

thanks for the link, Shakey. I've only given it a quick listen, but the cohen album is quite dense and feels very seedy to me. not sure if this is something I would choose to listen to very often.

Yeah, dense and seedy! exactly. kinda woozy too.

that first track kinda threw me, his vocal delivery is so weird and thin - I've listened to everything except the last song, definitely some kind of stroke of genius to pair "will you let me see.... your naked body" with Spector's trademark thundrous melodrama. good stuff on here, but yeah leaves a creepy taste in your mouth afterwards.

Here's another Phil Spector album I'm very curious about... it's very hard to find! According to this review, "names as far apart as Andrew Loog Oldham, Bobby Gillespie, Jason Pierce, and Pete Townshend have pronounced Born to Be With You one of the finest albums ever made. And they were correct."

http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:hzfexqr5ld0e

hmmmmm doesn't sound familiar at all! I don't think that was even mentioned in the Spector bio I have ("He's a Rebel")

and here it is! I love you, internets

I don't think it was mentioned in the one I read either, oddly enough

thanks for the link btw

hey, have you listened to this, Shakey? This is pretty damn good. I totally see why J. Spaceman likes this.

by the way, did you notice that all the people listed in that review are British?

Is it just me or does "New York City Song" sound like a long lost Jackson Browne song?

I thought there was no b-side to This Could Be the Night because it was unreleased until the boxed set.

Ladies Man has been a longtime fave.

This Could Be the Night sounds like it belongs on Nuggets

haven't listened to the Dion yet, will later today - still absorbing Ladies Man. Title track is awesome and totally bizarre, the arrangement just kinda stops and peters out, hanging on these suspended chords at the end, Cohen reflecting on the pointlessness of it all = awesome.

and I checked, the Ribowsky bio I have doesn't mention the Dion album at all, although it mentions the UK single from it in passing - there is a decent discography at the back of the book at least. Discography is lacking any mention of a single for This Could Be The Night, so I guess Pappawheelie is correct, although it makes me wonder where that other song linked to above came from. There is a bunch of stuff in the discography I have definitely never heard/seen anywhere, like the singles George Harrison wrote for Ronnie Spector circa All Things Must Pass

huh, really? "This Could Be The Night" was never released? I thought it was released, but the album they tried to record with Phil got bogged down in Spector-dom. But I could be wrong, I don't know. Awesome song, anyway.
but yeah, would be nice to have a comp of some of spector's 70s productions ...

wow this Dion album. maybe its just that the quality of the rip is better but I'd say it beats the Cohen album on sonics alone, super rich and beautiful. click that link folks.

but yeah, would be nice to have a comp of some of spector's 70s productions ...

there aren't many; he went into seclusion after the 60s with the exception for a couple albums. I don't even think he did anything throughout the whole 80s or 90s. He did one track for Starsailor, of all people, in 2002 I believe.

The Dion album is pretty darn good, and I don't say that very often.

End of the Century is my favorite Ramones album btw

I think in the 80s he mostly just put out comps of unreleased stuff. If I have time I'll post the highlights from Ribowsky's discog when I get home.

(and he did TWO tracks for Starsailor)

they released only one, I beleive-- and even that one, they erased and redid all his tracks except for the drums, I believe. that song ain't that hot though.

no wait, you might be right. my recollection was that those tracks weren't that good.

the fact that he didn't do more albums for the past few decades is such a fucking tragedy.

70s Albums
1970: Let It Be – The Beatles
1970: All Things Must Pass (co-producer) – George Harrison
1970: Plastic Ono Band (co-producer) – John Lennon and The Plastic Ono Band
1970: Plastic Ono Band (co-producer) – Yoko Ono and The Plastic Ono Band
1971: Imagine (co-producer) – John Lennon and The Plastic Ono Band with the Flux Fiddlers
1971: The Concert for Bangla Desh (co-producer) – George Harrison and friends
1972: Some Time in New York City (co-producer) – John Lennon and Yoko Ono with Elephant's Memory plus Invisible Strings
1975: Rock N' Roll (co-producer) – John Lennon
1975: Born To Be With You – Dion
1977: Death of a Ladies' Man – Leonard Cohen

70s Singles
"Instant Karma (We All Shine On)" – John Lennon (3/28/70, #3)
"The Long and Winding Road"/"For You Blue" – The Beatles (6/13/70, #1)
"My Sweet Lord" – George Harrison (12/26/70, #1)
"What Is Life" – George Harrison (3/27/71, #10)
"Power To The People" – John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (5/15/71, #11)
"Try Some, Buy Some" – Ronnie Spector (5/22/71, #77)
"Bangla-Desh" – George Harrison (9/11/71, #23)
"Imagine" – John Lennon (11/13/71, #3)
"Rock 'n' Roll High School" – Ramones (8/04/79, UK #67)

so yeah i guess you're right -- take away the beatles related stuff and there's not a whole lot he released during the 70s. is try some buy some good?
also hilarious that he did some unreleased recordings with celine dion in the 90s. yowch.

came close to producing Outrageous Cherry several years ago...

I thought End of the Century was '79?

sez 80 on wikipedia ... but you know wikipedia.

I'd say apart from the BanglaDesh concert and the Lennon covers material his 70s work is fucking amazing

Let It Be's a bit of a letdown I guess

well, he was brought in later for that-- basically to clean up the wreckage. It's not held in high regard for some reason, but I really like his work on "Long and Winding Road." In my opinion, the song sounds half-finished and skeletal without his orchestration

imho that song sucks because it is a crappy song, not because of anything Spector did to it.

I mean its just badly written schlock, several steps down from Lennon's "Goodnight", which it bears some similarities to.

it's schlocky no doubt, but yet there's something moving about it. something very bittersweet and final about it. It really should have been the closer to the album.

I'd say apart from the BanglaDesh concert and the Lennon covers material his 70s work is fucking amazing

George Harrison complained that Spector ruined All Things Must Pass. Do you see a trend here? Artists seem to be unable to divorce their negative experiences in the recording studio with the actual records.

huh I've never heard that. I assume at some point he ate those words following ATMP's canonization as the best Beatles' solo record (which it is)

That singles list is missing several non-hits by the likes of Darlene Love and Cher (esp. the latter's "A Woman's Story"), all collected on the long-lost Phil Spector '74-'79 compilation album (vinyl only).

yeah i figured there must be more stuff ... what's the tracklisting of that comp? sounds like just the ticket!

SIDE ONE:
1. Make the Woman Love Me - Dion
2. Here It Comes (and Here I Go) - Jerri Bo Keno
3. A Love Like Yours - Nilsson and Cher
4. Baby Let's Stick Together - Dion
5. Lord, If You're a Woman - Darlene Love

SIDE TWO:
6. A Woman's Story - Cher
7. Give It to Me - Kim Fowley
8. Baby I Love You - Cher
9. I Love Him Like I Love My Very Life - Darlene Love
10. Born to Be With You - Dion

Kim Fowley!!

must...find..

I bought the Dion cd (a two-fer with Streetheart) a few years ago at Amoeba in SF for normal price, didn't realize it was hard to fine. Streetheart has never clicked with me but Born To Be With You is really great. "Make The Woman Love Me" in particular is fabulous. Does being on that comp just posted indicate that it was a single, or hit? Because it's strange to think of a world in which a song sounding that broken would break on rock radio---country radio, sure.

I'm pretty sure both were released as singles in the UK but neither did very much saleswise.

yeahhhh, that's exactly what i want. come on, internet! give it up!!!

and who the hell is Jerri Bo Keno

this might be useful: http://www.spectropop.com/hspector2.html
some stuff i've never heard of in the 70s there ... Calhoon?

Jerri Bo Keno is mentioned in the RIbowsky book - some disco diva I think...?

1975
Jerri Bo Keno
A & M Studios, Hollywood
Arranged by Nino Tempo
Here It Comes And Here I Go
(Barry, Spector)
When this session took place, Philles Records had been out of business for nearly a decade. Phil Spector had secured his place in the annals of Rock ’n’ Roll by co-producing the Beatles’ Let It Be album as well as several other million-selling platters for John Lennon, Yoko Ono and George Harrison. Still based in Hollywood, he had simultaneously launched two boutique labels in 1974, one in the United States (Warner-Spector) and another in England (Phil Spector International). Hollywood was now Jeff Barry’s home base, too; he was working as a staff producer for A & M Records. Ellie Greenwich had remained in Manhattan. With two new partners, Steve Feldman and the late Steve Tudanger, she’d founded a production company called Jingle Habitat and was busy writing and singing advertising jingles. Other than reissues of his Philles Records masters, not much resulted from Spector’s new musical ventures. However, he did wax new material with ascendant solo superstar Cher (who, with ex-husband Sonny Bono had sung backups for him at Philles), former teen idol Dion DiMucci and an ingenue named Patricia Bocchino. Jeff Barry discovered her singing in a group called the Tootsie Rock Revue and brought her to Spector’s attention. He changed her name to Jerri Bo Keno, and then he and Jeff wrote a song for her. “Here It Comes And Here I Go“ is a Country/Pop number that the producer turned into even more of a hybrid by setting it to a jerky rhumba beat and overlaying a sound effects track of someone stomping the Hell out of a plywood board. The resulting single was more than a little reminiscent of early Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons hits. While it certainly gets your attention in a hurry, “Here It Comes” never quite gels as a record. Right after the single was released, Ms. Bocchino admitted to Melody Maker Magazine that she "didn’t (even) touch the melody and had to do the vocal over and over again.” It‘s true, she never did come to grips with the melody, and that’s undoubtedly why the platter tanked. Too bad, because with someone like Ronnie Spector on lead vocals, it might’ve really caused a stir.

hard to believe that this stuff is so difficult to find

huh I've never heard that. I assume at some point he ate those words following ATMP's canonization as the best Beatles' solo record (which it is)

No, I don't think he did. According to the wikipedia entry:

...Harrison enlisted the aid of Phil Spector to co-produce the album, giving All Things Must Pass a heavy and reverb-oriented sound, typical for a 1960s/1970s Spector production — but a sound Harrison would subsequently regret with the passage of time. In the EPK that accompanies the 30th Anniversary reissue George is asked what he thinks of the album now thirty years later and he says, "...too much echo."

I seem to remember him having much harsher words in the book, which I no longer have.

best-sounding record George ever made, and I actually like a fair amount of his solo work

haha, "too much echo" ... bet spector reached for his revolver when he heard that!

NO PUN INTENDED, LOLZLZOZLLZOZLZOZLZLZOL

Spector was just very demanding and hard to work with, so I'm sure it colored the experience of nearly every single person he's ever worked with. The one and only person who I've heard saying positive things about working with Spector was Hal Blaine, in an interview with Terry Gross. I believe he said something along the lines of "every session with Phil Spector was like a big party."

I mean, he made the Ramones play the opening CHORD of "Rock'n'Roll High School" 700 times or so because it didn't sound just perfect to him. That's pretty damn obsessive.

yes but that chord sounds awesome dunnit

http://fortheloveofharry.blogspot.com/2008/02/nilsson-cher-love-like-yours-1975.html

do you guys find it odd that few people on ILM seem to be familiar with Phil Spector's (non-Beatle) work? This shit is unbelievably classic. And the fact that it had such a huge influence on the much-loved Beach Boys is so obvious when you listen to it. I'm perplexed.

Phil's back on trial, and jury selection is beginning. Maybe a conviction will get his career back on track. Kind of like how Gary Glitter's did.

last one was a hung jury, right...?

yeah. i don't really see how he can get an impartial jury at this stage.

ah there's lots of people who don't know who Phil Spector is. Its not like he's OJ or Michael Jackson.

Yeah, but almost anyone who's heard of him now associates him only with that murder, and nothing else.

OMG vinyl REISSUES of Philles Records?!! teh awesome

did this guy ever make a bad-sounding record?

or even just a flat-out BAD one?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61OmR1iwo%2BL._SL500_AA280_.jpg
?

i kind of want the phil les box set thing...

not that i've heard. 'back to mono' is easily most essential box set ever, ronettes best-of is perfect.

I'm kinda suspicious of phil's name being on that Rachelle Spector record tbh

I mean it sure doesn't SOUND like he worked on it, compared to other stuff he'd done recently

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjCjkRoXLMk

yeah i doubt that he did very much actual work on that rachelle album.

Some Time In New York City is pretty bad, I guess

Yeah, that's some made-in-hell combination of bad songs and terrible production. The stereo on that is awful, especially compared to something like Imagine. Some of the Rock 'N' Roll Spector material fares better, or the Dion album. As great as the Cohen album is, it does sound a bit crap mixwise.

The Starsailor thing was terrible because, despite the fact they asked him to produce their album, they kicked him off it because they thought he was making it sound like a Phil Spector album. It sounds like they're reigning him in and so it's just not representative, i guess. I just wonder what they expected from him.

(I've had a bottle of wine and I am a bit of a Spector freak, I'm afraid)

I don't give two shits about Starsailor and never would have even heard of them if it weren't for Spector, but I think those two songs produced by Spector that got released are pretty good

love the Cohen album, probably the weirdest/most insane thing he ever did

yeah, it's nuts, but great. wouldn't mind if it got remastered, my CD is pretty muddy, but that might just be the way it is.

I'd love to see it remastered too.... I guess if they're remastering the Philles albums the 70's stuff could up for the similar treatment?

Shakey, re: starsailor it just seems such a waste of the first production Spector did for 10+ years. The songs are pleasant enough, but a part of me would have liked to have seen him let rip.

Also this thread premise is cruel and unjust

The Derek and The Dominoes single he produced is kind of a mess.

this has a bunch of non-box set stuff including the Jerri Bo Keno single, the 70s Cher singles, etc.

unfortunately all of the tracks in each link are one long MP3, rather than separate tracks, which is kind of irritating.

One of my favorite Spector productions is actually John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. No wall of sound here, so uncharacteristicly stark.

he definitely treated Lennon's stuff differently - I love pretty much all the work they did together (various singles + Imagine + Plastic Ono Band). Listened to Sometime in NY last night and Spector's really the best thing about it. the songwriting is fairly dire and lazy for the most part, the material doesn't really deserver Spector imho.

ya'll know there's a big box set of philles LPs coming out?