Phil Spector

1
  • Year:
    1989
  • Inducted by:
    Tina Turner
  • Category:
    Ahmet Ertegun Award
Phil Spector

Introduction

A Phil Spector song is its own little world—it has narrative, emotion and its own sonic landscape.

Phil Spector changed recording forever when he created the Wall of Sound. Layer upon layer of instruments and echoes come to a roaring climax in his compositions, often backing up his own brilliant lyrics.

Hall of Fame Essay

1989

Lenny Kaye

The wall-to keep in, to keep out; to set a further edge, a border; a component of rooms, of houses; upon which to hang overhead microphones, tympanis, orchestral bells, reverberations, decorations and decla­rations, limitation  without limitations - of Sound. A Back-to-Monolith. 

Phil Spector created that Wall, making a music of both grandeur and intimacy. Like a poperatic conductor, he gathered the dedbelic forces of the universe in service of its most simplistic emotion: the moment when love  reveals. 

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony Program 1989
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Phil Spector and the Wrecking Crew
I wish that all of the people that I sing for could have seen him in action, working there and getting that sound
Tina Turner

Photography: Kevin Mazur, WireImage