I was just a little too young.

I was aware of Spector’s pre-Beatle hits, but they were somewhere in the back of my brain, they were not foreground in my life, and I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that I used to grimace every time “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” came over the radio at the end of ’64 into ’65, I’d push the button in the dashboard of my father’s VistaCruiser, or turn the dial in my mother’s Falcon, or on my no-name transistor. The Beatles heralded a new sound, a new life, the Righteous Brothers were a return to the old.

Or maybe I was just too young.

But I’m not that young anymore. Phil died at 81. Polygram Canada sent me his boxed set “Back to Mono” in 1991…Phil was 51! That’s a distant memory in my life, and Phil was already a has-been. How very weird. The sands of time keep flowing and you wake up one day and it’s not even your world anymore. I read Brian Wheat’s book about Tesla, a band I’ve always loved, and then I realized their big hits were thirty years ago, long before today’s youngsters driving popular music were even born! Think about that, today’s college freshmen never knew a world without high speed internet, whereas me and my fellow boomers lived through a wrenching transition we still can’t completely fathom, just like our parents lived through the dawn of television! And the smartphone… Not only did it give access, it killed boredom. How many times were you alone, killing time, waiting, and you ended up reading the contents of your wallet? I certainly did, many times!

So if you go back to the beginning, “To Know Him Is to Love Him” was a standard, something everybody knew, just like “Try to Remember” from the “Fantasticks” two years later. Same deal with “Da Doo Ron Ron.” And I knew “Then He Kissed Me,” but I heard it most on the 1965 Beach Boys album “Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), where it was entitled “Then I Kissed Her” and was sung by Al Jardine, on the side of the LP that ended with the hit version of “Help Me Rhonda,” also sung by Jardine, as opposed to the first iteration on “The Beach Boys Today!” Brian Wilson revered Phil Spector, but Brian was born in 1942, I was born in 1953, completely different eras when it comes to music.

As far as “Be My Baby” and “Baby, I Love You”…I dabbled in pop music on the radio, in between listening to sports, before the Beatles arrived, but Phil Spector was never a big hero to me, I really didn’t know that much about him.

But then I started reading “Rolling Stone” and in its pages “River Deep – Mountain High” was constantly lauded as a masterpiece, but I’d never heard it, the 1966 track was never a hit, and it wasn’t until the Rolling Stones took Ike & Tina on tour in ’69 that they really started to get any traction in the minds of most white people.

But there was that Tom Wolfe article, “The Tycoon of Teen.”

Written in 1964 for the “International Herald Tribune”…needless to say I missed that initial printing. But, the essay was included in the 1965 Tom Wolfe compilation, “The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby.” My mother had that book. And one day I took it down from the shelf and read the article about Spector. But it had little effect on me, like I said, he was already in the rearview mirror, never mind ahead of my time, but the story of getting off the airplane…that always stuck with me.

Now my friend Andrew Loog Oldham posits the Tom Wolfe article killed Spector’s career, because Phil bought the hype, became full of himself and lost perspective, and ability. You’re only as good as your last hit, this is what drives people in the music business, but when you’re anointed a god, you’re atop the mountain, there’s nowhere else to go. Actually, this is the story of rock music…misfits believing success will cure their ills and when they make it and it doesn’t, they have no more hits.

But just like Brian Wilson, his contemporaries, the Beatles, also born in the early forties, worshiped Phil Spector too. And ultimately worked with him.

Hmm…

Am I the only person who hates “The Long and Winding Road”? The strings…execrable. Schmaltzy. I pushed the button, turned the dial on that one too.

As for the “Let It Be” album, which Spector also produced… There was a big push when it came out, but the focus was on the film, and in America we did not get the boxed set of the U.K., we got an LP that seemed thrown together, not fully-formed, and never forget that Paul McCartney released his first solo LP at the same time. But there are winners on the “Let It Be” album, yet no one ever talks about my favorite, “I’ve Got a Feeling,” never mind “For You Blue.”

As for Spector after the Beatles…

All the news was about his eccentricities. People would talk about him, you’d read he was going to produce some star’s album, but then it wouldn’t happen. He worked with the Ramones, but I never cottoned to “End of the Century,” I vastly preferred what came earlier, “Rocket to Russia” and “Road to Ruin.” As for Leonard Cohen’s “Death of a Ladies Man”…if you read the rock press, this was a story, you were aware of it, and I purchased the album, but it was a stiff, never mind the fact that Leonard Cohen’s recording success had really taken place in the sixties, with his first two albums, it was only when Cohen went back on tour in the twenty first century that he was universally lauded.

So, from the seventies on, most of the stories about Phil Spector were about his eccentricities. How he controlled his wife Ronnie, his guns, he was around, but he never seemed to work.

And then came the death of Lana Clarkson in 2003. Anybody who followed Spector was not surprised, they’d been fearing something like this would happen. But in a castle atop a mountain in Alhambra? That’s like hearing a hedge fund king lives in Yonkers. And then came the ridiculous wigs in court and Phil’s ultimate conviction and he faded away, you rarely read about him, and now he’s dead.

Covid-19. Everyone ignores it until it affects them. 81 is a full ride, but Phil still had runway, he was a human being, however insane. And he was insane. But if you’re rich you have enablers. You get a pass. Phil got so many passes that he ended up shooting Clarkson and going to jail for the rest of his life.

Now never underestimate the influence, the footprint of Phil’s wall of sound productions. They ruled. Sure, Phil had help from others, like Larry Levine and Lester Sill, but Phil had a vision, and he was able to lay it down on tape, and he influenced and started so many others, even Sonny Bono.

But Phil Spector worked with the Beatles.

Most notably, Phil produced George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass.” That boxed set was the biggest of the Beatle solo debuts. And it came out for Christmas, it was everywhere. George never had such big success again. And listening to subsequent albums, you can hear what Phil added, the new records were stripped of so much steel wool, and then time went by and George and his solo work were relegated to secondary status, at least amongst Beatles. Unfortunately, George died. And those who lived through his heyday remember him, but the music does not permeate the airwaves of today like that of McCartney.

And Ringo is still alive and recording.

As for John Lennon…

He did his greatest work with Phil Spector.

Only in retrospect has John Lennon’s true first solo album, “Plastic Ono Band,” ascended into the pantheon. A ripping up of the soul, a dissection of his insides, stark and immediate, there were no obvious hit singles, so there was no AM airplay in an era where that radio band still dominated. Not that the tracks on “Plastic Ono Band” were radio-friendly, but “Working Class Hero” is still as relevant today. Never mind “Mother” and “God.” Lennon didn’t care about his past, his career, he was unafraid of risking, and Spector helped get his feelings and sound down on wax. Mostly unfettered. Phil didn’t dominate John’s sound, didn’t turn him into another act that could have been signed to Philles Records.

By time he got to “Mind Games,” Lennon had jettisoned Spector, just as George Harrison had done previously. But, Spector did produce John’s second solo album, containing Lennon’s signature song, “Imagine.” In addition to the title track, there was the indelible “Jealous Guy,” which I believe was made better by Spector, and “Gimme Some Truth” and “How Do You Sleep?” Spector shined on “Imagine,” even though I think he overdid it with the single, it veered on the schmaltziness of “The Long and Winding Road,” it always seemed too obvious to me.

But for me, the apotheosis, the peak of Spector’s work with Lennon, came with the initial single, Spector’s debut with John, “Instant Karma.”

Now “Give Peace a Chance” was Lennon’s first solo single, and a radio success, the song became ubiquitous, we need an anthem like that in today’s troubled times. But the follow-up was a true killer, “Cold Turkey,” with Eric Clapton’s stinging guitar, but it failed on the charts in the U.S., only making it to number 30.

But then came the aforementioned “Instant Karma.”

Unlike with Spector’s initial hits, now I was the right age. I was a senior in high school. The focus was now on the blues-based bands of the U.K. The first two Zeppelin albums had been released, and Cream before them. But these albums were mostly FM products, there was occasional crossover to AM, usually way later, but they were not made for amplitude modulation. “Instant Karma” was.

It was the drums. No matter how small your speaker, they jumped out, they anchored the record, they penetrated your body.

And then there was John’s urgent vocal, he was singing like he truly meant it, he was holding nothing back.

And the singalong chorus.

And the message.

“Instant karma’s gonna get you

Gonna knock you right on the head”

Lennon popularized the term, prior to this single most people had no idea what “karma” was.

“How in the world you gonna see”

The drum fill right after this line is positively magical. The drums are as important to the success of “Instant Karma” as Lennon’s vocal, this is what Phil Spector could provide, no one else could capture this sound.

And Phil made the chorus an anthem, gave it impact.

“Well we all shine on

Like the moon and the stars and the sun

Yeah we all shine on

Come on and on and on, on, on”

Spector was a co-conspirator, someone from Lennon’s same generation, not an oldster, a parent like George Martin. Spector did not look at the track from afar, he embedded himself right in it, he was creating an indelible single, THAT WAS HIS SKILL!

Phil Spector was not about albums. He was all about the track, one single cut that would blow people’s minds, that they could not get out of their head. There are tons of hit singles, number ones, but most fade away, and they definitely do not radiate. And when you listen to tracks from the past, many seem so quaint, whereas Phil’s hits jump out of the radio, with as much impact as when they were first released, they may not sound like today, but they sound just as good.

Like today’s rappers, who know their tracks are played through headphones and car stereos, sometimes with overemphasized bass, Phil knew his tracks were heard streaming out of tiny single speakers in cars and transistor radios. Stereo didn’t become big until the late sixties, Phil cut in mono, his tracks were impenetrable, that was part of his genius, his records were an assault, on all levels, a tsunami of sound, and he infected the populace just like Elvis and the original rockers before him.

And the problem with music history is time always marches on, there’s always a number one, which people equate with former number ones when in truth there may be no comparison. Some records are better than others, much better.

I don’t know what happens to Phil Spector’s legacy, how he’s viewed in the future. Probably as a madman. Someone who might be medicated today, but might lose his talent in the process. That’s Kanye’s dilemma.

It will probably take decades, centuries for Phil Spector’s records to be separated from his personal life. But the records will live on, that’s what’s great about the modern age, you can keep what is precious, seemingly forever.

But was Phil really heads and shoulders above the rest of the producers?

Tom Wolfe never wrote a story about George Martin, never mind Roy Thomas Baker, who crafted Queen’s sound and more. And then there’s Mutt Lange.

But let’s never forget that Phil wrote too. He had an investment in his records, he wasn’t just a gun for hire. He started out as a teen, who chucked convention to do it his way, paving the way for so many after him.

The truth is if you’re well-adjusted, if you’ve lived a life without hardship, you’re probably not a successful artist. You might even have hits, you might play in the band, but you don’t change people’s lives, you don’t have a lasting impact.

Phil Spector was crazy. But his records were not. Or maybe they were, it takes chutzpah to do it your way, to break all the rules, to have confidence in yourself that you know what is right, especially in a business rampant with me-tooism…have a hit and everybody tries to imitate it.

But people could never truly copy Phil Spector’s wall of sound. And with “Instant Karma” he was able to adjust to the present, he didn’t fill up all the holes, but he knew how to make the sound big, how to create an aural pile driver that scorched ears and crashed bodies.

But karma ultimately got Phil. It didn’t happen early, and it wasn’t instant, but he got paid back for his bad behavior. Phil’s gone now, but his work shines on, like the moon, the stars and the sun.

Today’s “New York Times” has a story about the death of a Minnesota state senator:

“In Minnesota, a G.O.P. Lawmaker’s Death Brings Home the Reality of Covid – Minnesota Republicans celebrated election victories with a gala party. A state senator’s death from Covid-19 underlined the consequences of the G.O.P.’s rejection of health experts’ guidance.: https://nyti.ms/3bXmnmx

Even worse is what has happened in Congress. 62 members have been infected with Covid: https://nyti.ms/2LKfKsT But isn’t it interesting that 44 are Republicans and 18 are Democrats?

And for those doubting the efficacy of the vaccine, I point you to today’s story “Underselling the Vaccine”: https://nyti.ms/3qqVo6C Read this article and you will be hopeful. As I am now that Biden is taking office. His statements re attacking the Covid problem are so inspiring. After hearing for decades that government is the enemy, it’s good to have someone in office attempting to harness the power of government to solve our pandemic, and endemic, problems. This is the turning point. However, tens of millions of people still need to be convinced. It isn’t going to happen overnight, but people have a hard time arguing with success. Then again, there’s a whole industry painting anything the Democrats do as inadequate/bogus/a failure, even when this is untrue. We’re fighting for the soul of America, for democracy itself. And while we’re on the topic of democracy, I urge you to listen to “Gaslit Nation,” “Clear Intent”: https://bit.ly/2M3sBq0 You can read a transcript here:   https://bit.ly/39IMqLd Sarah Kendzior has been right about everything this election cycle, that the Trumps are a Mafia family, part of a transnational crime syndicate. We thought it could never happen here, but it has.

Kendzior posits so much that seems unbelievable, but is probably true. That Cruz and Hawley were kissing Trump’s butt in order to gain his approval and inherit his base so they could run for president. But Trump had no intention of endorsing them, he was always planning to run Ivanka.

And while we’re pushing boundaries, Kendzior talks about the collapse of the United States and “it being partitioned into little fiefdoms that will be ruled by oligarchs and plutocrats, with some sort of state apparatus put in charge.” I know that sounds fantastical, but so did Trump trying to steal the election and inciting an insurrection two weeks ago. I know, I know, we’ve had enough of the insanity, but once again, Kendzior’s doctorate is in totalitarian regimes, which is the way the world has been going recently if you haven’t realized.

The myopia of America has come back to bite it in the ass. We’ve been told forever that the rest of the world does not compare, so we know little about the rest of the world, never mind having been there. So there are lessons to be learned that we don’t know. Authoritarianism has happened all over the globe, and it can happen here.

This is just opinion. But seemingly only the Republicans can organize and look to the future. The Democrats are disorganized until one day they wake up and realize their country has changed, to the point of barely being recognizable. By today’s standards, so many of yesteryear’s Republicans were Democrats. As for bipartisan legislation…that went out with the last century, before that in fact.

Kendzior’s solution is accountability. Unless we hold the perpetrators accountable, the heart of duplicity will still beat and ultimately grow louder and stronger.

And one more thing Kendzior points out references those who are calling for unity…

“You helped do this. You helped kill this country, you helped kill people through Coronavirus. You helped bring this down if you’re shocked right now. So never forget, people use shock – they feign shock – to dodge accountability. That’s what many elected officials are doing right now, many journalist are doing right now, and it’s disgusting…”

We’ve got to put a stake through the heart of this creeping authoritarianism.

And Kendzior points out how Putin destabilized the European Union via Brexit. Yes, the first vote was close. And Putin influenced it, never mind the lies of the leaders of the Brexiteers. And just like in America, it was the rural, those who worked with their hands, who had never been anywhere, who wanted to jet back to a theoretical past, who in the case  of Brexit voted to secede, those who didn’t even understand how economics work. And now the U.K. is suffering the consequences. Have you been following the insanity re touring?

“Musicians have been betrayed by this Brexit deal – we need answers and we are not going away – Without visa-free tours of Europe, it will be economically impossible for many artists starting out – now we risk losing the next Adele or Ed Sheeran to red tape and bureaucracy”: https://bit.ly/2XYRhCt

And from the BBC: “EU blames UK after outcry over end to visa-free touring for musicians”: https://bbc.in/2M043ya

The government sold out the musicians, the financial sector, traders… Every day there’s news about the negative effects of Brexit, things that those who voted for it didn’t know, if they could even comprehend them. But it felt right to secede, just like it feels right not to wear a mask, but that’s modern life, where no one can contemplate the consequences. Meanwhile, the American government allows food companies to fatten our society while pinning obesity on personal responsibility and Trump and his cronies freaked out when California wanted clean air and certain auto companies endorsed the program!

As for Trump’s trade battle with China…

“How China Won Trump’s Trade War and Got Americans to Foot the Bill”: https://bloom.bg/3nW3u5M

The “New York Times,” “Bloomberg,” they’re reporting facts, meanwhile Fox News just added another hour of opinion. And Fox and MSNBC usually start their discourse with what’s been reported in the “New York Times” and “Washington Post,” but then the right is told to ignore what is said. Where is the concomitant reporting on the right? It doesn’t exist, except in the “Wall Street Journal,” which almost always aligns with the “Times,” “Bloomberg” and the “Washington Post” when it comes to facts, never mind the “Journal”‘s opinions, which are off the wall.

And speaking of off the wall, you’ve got to read this article from yesterday’s “Times”: 

“How Republicans Are Warping Reality Around the Capitol Attack – Loyalists to President Trump are increasingly relying on conspiracy theories and misinformation, drawing false equivalence with last summer’s racial protests and blaming outside agitators.”: https://nyti.ms/3oWsGtX

Yes, it was Black Lives Matter and antifa that stormed the Capitol, I kid you not.

And then there’s the words of Rudy Giuliani: 

“‘The riot was preplanned,’ said Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City. ‘This was an attempt to slander Trump.’ He added, ‘The evidence is coming out.'”

What evidence? The same evidence of fraud in the election, the same evidence that someone other than O.J. did the killing?

Rust never sleeps, nor do the falsehoods on the right. Stay awake.

Phil Spector, Leslie West, Gerry Marsden, Sylvain Sylvain, Tim Bogert…

Tune in tomorrow, January 19th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive

“Do Stand So Close: my improbable adventure as Sting’s guitarist”: https://amzn.to/38OscAw

This is the best book I’ve ever read about being on the road. Yes, even better than Ian Hunter’s long ago memoir.

First and foremost, Jeffrey Lee Campbell can write. Positively astounding. Not a week goes by without someone sending me their music book, and they’re almost never good. Having a story is different from being able to write the story. Furthermore, said writers don’t realize a story should flow, that sometimes you’ve got to leave the best stuff out because it doesn’t fit the narrative.

But not Jeffrey Lee Campbell.

Jeff was the guitarist on Sting’s “…Nothing Like the Sun” tour, which included a six week worldwide jaunt on the Amnesty tour, featuring Bruce Springsteen and Peter Gabriel and more.

Jeff didn’t play on the record, but Sting heard him play as part of an underfunded jazz combo in Europe and decided to give him an audition. Jeff showed up for multiple rehearsals, and eventually Sting said he could have the job if he wanted it. The business people told him it was only going to pay $2500 a week, take it or leave it, but it was much better than selling candy at Broadway theatres.

Yes, that was Jeff’s gig. Along with Aaron Sorkin and Camryn Manheim… You’ve got to start somewhere, and you’re best off starting in New York or L.A. Did you read any of the obits about Howard Johnson? The tuba player made famous by Taj Mahal, who was a fixture in the original SNL band, didn’t think he was good enough for New York, so he went first to Chicago. But when Eric Dolphy heard Howard play, he said he was needed in NYC right away, and Howard moved, and there started a decades-long career: https://nyti.ms/3qshN3z

Jeff was living in North Carolina. He’d attended the music program at the University of Miami, but dropped out after three years. Then he played in local bands until he got up the gumption to move to the city. Where he was nobody. He got the gig selling candy and hanging coats on Broadway, but he had to work his connections until he could finally get gigs playing in wedding bands. What did AC/DC say? It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock ‘n’ roll?

But actually, it was a short journey for Jeff. He took the gig and…

Proceeded to go on the road for a year. This was before the internet, never mind smartphones. Being in one’s hotel room was lonely, and boring. Jeff played some tennis, at times with Sting, but mostly he drank and drugged and saw nothing of the world, mostly in places he’s never been back to.

You see this was the highlight of Jeff’s career. 1987-1988. He never got such a high profile gig thereafter. He came home thinking he was a big deal, but in the city he was seen as a guy who hadn’t paid his dues, who wasn’t hooked into the local scene, and after running out of money, he went back to playing in wedding bands and… He played some other famous tours thereafter, but not at the same level, with the same prominence. For decades, Jeff’s been a guitarist in Broadway orchestras. It’s a hard gig to get, and not often an easy gig to keep, it’s all about relationships. Being able to play is assumed. Jeff rehearsed for free, spent all that time learning the music to get his first gig as a sub. And he likes being able to walk to work, and the pay is good, but it is not the touring big time.

So, Jeff goes on the road and is always worried about getting fired. And this is a possibility. The drummer is replaced. Yes, you think you’ve got security, but…

And the regulars, like Kenny Kirkland and Branford Marsalis… I won’t say they exactly haze him, but when he steps out, makes rookie mistakes, they rub it in, deeply.

And the sex… Sometimes in brothels provided as perks by promoters. And the endless one night stands. The girls want to get closer, and Jeff provides the experience. And these affairs often take all night, so the next day…you’re dragging. And then there’s the night Jeff did too much and was subpar on stage and was chided by Sting…

Sting is portrayed as a good guy. Not without faults, but…you buy it as a reader, even though Rod Stewart zings the star.

So, there’s a warm-up in South America, and an appearance on SNL, where Jeff gets to wail on “Little Wing,” but he’s always wondering exactly where he fits in, how wide a path he can cut, is he one of the boys or just an outsider who’s going to be one and done.

Jeff does not get hired for the next Sting tour. And he wonders, did he drink too much, party too much? He’ll never know. But he’s been trading on this one year of touring with Sting ever since, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Jeff doesn’t sugarcoat the story. And the best thing is he describes his feelings, and has no problem putting himself down and wondering what he was thinking when he did certain things.

Most people have no idea what truly goes on on the road. They see the band on stage, and believe off stage is a heaven of sex and drugs. But there’s endless travel, which wears on you.

And is Jeff ever accepted?

He’s on the Amnesty tour and one of Bruce’s security people insists he get out of the way, despite Jeff having an all access pass. Jeff refuses to move, and then Bruce comes down the hallway and says hi to him. Jeff got some satisfaction.

And you will too.

Yes, this was over thirty years ago. And now things are different, but on some level they’re the same. Can you afford a private jet, can you base yourself in a central city and then fly out to gigs?

And there are so many great lines, musician aphorisms, many that I have not heard.

Like musicians can make a killing, but they can’t make a living. Either you get this or you don’t.

And as far as money on the road…it is described as an ocean of cash, and if you dip in and take some, no one will ever notice it. I’m not talking about theft, but if you want to stand up for more…it’s not gonna hurt the tour, no one’s really going to notice the loss.

I breezed right through this book. I had a hard time putting it down. If you want to know what it’s like being on the road, a prominent band member backing up a superstar…THIS IS THE PLACE!