Tearing Down the Wall of Sound - by Mick Brown (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A stunning biography of "pure self-interest and cruelty, tempered only slightly by the great musical achievements of Mr. Spector's golden age in the early 1960s" (The New York Times).

He had a number one hit at eighteen. He was a millionaire with his own record label at twenty-two. He was, according to Tom Wolfe, "the first tycoon of teen." Phil Spector owned pop music. From the Crystals, the Ronettes (whose lead singer, Ronnie, would become his second wife), and the Righteous Brothers to the Beatles (together and singly) and finally the seventies punk icons The Ramones, Spector produced hit after hit.

But then he became pop music's most famous recluse. Until one day in the spring of 2007, when his name hit the tabloids, connected to a horrible crime.

In this "bruising portrait of legendary music producer Phil Spector" (Entertainment Weekly), the last journalist to interview him before his arrest tells the full story of the troubled genius.

Review Quotes

"Bloodcurdling biography. . . . A portrait of pure self-interest and cruelty, tempered only slightly by the great musical achievements of Mr. Spector's golden age in the early 1960s." --The New York Times

"Gripping. . . . Brown succeeds in providing a well-rounded portrait of someone the public never understood. And it comes at just the right time, too-when they're asking more questions about him than ever." --The Washington Post

"Fascinating, detailed. . . . A great portrait of where genius and madness meet." --Rocky Mountain News

"A bruising portrait of legendary music producer Phil Spector." --Entertainment Weekly

About the Author

Mick Brown was born in London in 1950 and has interviewed Salvador Dali, the Rolling Stones, James Brown, Don DeLillo, Richard Ford, Ravi Shankar, and the Dalai Lama, and has written several books as well on Richard Branson, the movie Performance, and a guide to America through pop songs. His interview with Spector--the first in twenty-five years--was published in The Telegraph in England only days before Lana Clarkson was found dead in his "castle" in Los Angeles.