Phil Spector: Out of His Head

by Richard Williams

"One of the best books to come out of the Rock Scene," was Publishers’ Weekly’s assessment of Williams’ brilliant portrait of Phil Spector, originally published in 1972, and now updated to include Spector’s work over the following three decades and the bizarre circumstances surrounding the shooting of Lana Clarkson at Spector’s L.A. mansion on February 3, 2003.

Genres: Music, Biography

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2003

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Richard Williams is the chief sports writer for the Guardian and the bestselling author of The Death of Ayrton Senna and Enzo Ferrari: A Life. He is a lifelong fan of Nottingham Forest.

Reviews

[Julian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty damn fine read. Although I read the original version published in 1972 (1974 edition) which obviously doesn't have the newer stuff added on. And of course a lot of things happened to Spector between 72 & now.
But it's still a good appreciation by Williams before life got more complicated for Spector. Williams truly demonstrates that he is a fan but isn't at all sycophantic in that appreciation.

[Sasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this original 1972 paperback simply because I liked the ancient owner of the second-hand bookshop and even brought him some food from a fresh market nearby - he must be in his 80s and this place is his universe, loved everything about it. Than it turned out that the book itself actually excellent! Obviously this is from 1972 and this is the best thing about it - later books about Spector focus too much about scandals and the descent into the madness, but this little book is all about the music and the best thing about it might be that it was written while Spector was still working - it is a close look at the music industry circa 1972, with recently disbanded Beatles working closely with Spector and at that point he was still not completely manic, but respected producer instead.

One interesting thing that Williams notes is how before Spector, producers were really in the background - while he was preceded by some important names like John Hammond, George Goldner and Sam Phillips, it was Spector who marketed his records like the latest, newest product by Phil Spector - to my knowledge, nobody else did it before and surprisingly (from our perspective) the main artists were almost unimportant, it was all about Spector himself. Williams also covers every important aspect of Spector recorded output up to that point and how Beatles connection helped to bring him back to the forefront of music industry - for a while he seemed invincible but as we know, it will not stay like that.

[Richard Clarkson · Rating 3 out of 5]

very detailed and completist about his music and releases

[Jan Jørgensen · Rating 3 out of 5]

En af de tidelige biografier om Phil Spector, skrivestilen er god men den svinde dog til tider lidt ud i tekniske beskrivelser der ikke føles lige relevante.
Bogens største problem er dog at den er skrevet for tidligt den når kun lige at inkludere hans arbejde med beatles og Lennon og stopper lige som manden begynder at blive rigtig gal og inden mange af hans store plader. Men på den måde gør den hvad den skal, giver læseren blod på tanden og lyst til at vide mere.
Og jeg har allerrede den næste Spector biografi på to-read listen.