Via
Philly: "Phil Spector stepped out of his mansion with a gun in his hand at 5 a.m. four years ago and said, "I think I killed somebody," a chauffeur testified yesterday in the record producer's trial on charges of murdering an actress. It was the first time that Adriano Desouza, who has told the story to police and grand jurors, gave his account in public.
The chauffeur said he had delivered Spector and actress Lana Clarkson to the home about two hours earlier. He said he first heard a "pow," got out of Spector's car to see what the noise was and then got back into the car. A short time later Spector emerged, Desouza testified.
Spector said, "I think I killed somebody," according to the driver, who testified that he then asked, "What happened, sir?" The producer responded with a shrug, he said.
Desouza said he looked past Spector into the foyer of his castle-like home in suburban Alhambra. "I saw the legs of the lady," he said. "I stepped inside and I saw the blood on her face."
Veronica Bennett, a.k.a. Ronettes lead singer Ronnie Spector, was Spector's wife for 5 years. They got divorced because among other things he "showed her a gold coffin with a glass top in his basement, promising to kill and display her should she ever choose to leave him."
Phil Spector is a complete nut-job. He went bananas long before he murdered that actress at his house in 2003. But, long before that, he sold over a million records while he was still in high school, and was solid gold as a record producer and songwriter. He became a millionaire by the time he was 23, producing 15 hits in a row with artists such as the Ronettes and the Crystals.
Before Phil Spector eventually heads off to spend a few years in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison, here's a look at some of the music that he had a hand in creating.
Brian Wilson cited the 1964 Beach Boys song "Don't Worry Baby" as his attempt to duplicate "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes, while he also attempted to mimic spector's production techniques in the studio. The Beach Boys later paid tribute to Spector in their song "Mona," with the lyrics "Come on, Listen to "Da Doo Ron Ron," now Listen to "Be My Baby"/I know you're gonna love Phil Spector."
"In 1970 Spector was invited by Lennon and George Harrison to take on the task of turning the Beatles abandoned "Get Back" recording sessions into a usable album. Spector went to work using many of his production techniques, making significant changes to the arrangements and sound of some songs. The resulting album, Let It Be, was a massive commercial success and yielded a #1 single, "The Long and Winding Road."
A year later he joined Lennon and Yoko Ono as co-producer on
Imagine. Extensive footage of the sessions, showing the evolution of some of the songs, was compiled on a video documentary entitled
Gimme Some Truth: The Making of John Lennon's Imagine."
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