Back to Mono 1958-1969

by

Phil Spector

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Phil Spector led a troubled life but in his peak years produced some of the finest pop music. This collection is in chronological order for the first three CD's. The fourth CD is his famous Christmas album, which is available separately for those who don't want the other music.

Phil's first success was with To know him is to love him (Teddy bears). Otther early classics include Spanish Harlem (Ben E King) and I love how you love me (Paris sisters) but Phil is remembered (apart from the Christmas album) for producing the Crystals, Ronettes and Righteous brothers.

The Crystals are represented here by classics such as Da doo ron ron, Then he kissed me and He's a rebel. I was surprised to find that there are more tracks by the Ronettes than the Crystals. Both were brilliant but the Crystals were more successful overall. Still, I can't fault any of the Ronettes tracks, the most famous of which is Be my baby. Darlene Love, who was sometimes a member of the Crystals (lead singer on He's a rebel), is represented by several solo tracks. The Righteous brothers recorded their two most famous tracks with Phil Spector, these being You've lost that loving feeling and Unchained melody. During this period, there was one other noteworthy group recording for Phil - Bob B Soxx and the Blue jeans, who had success in America with Zip-a-dee-doo-dah and Why do lovers break each other's hearts?

Among all the success, there was failure. Ike and Tina Turner recorded one album with Phil Spector, featuring the classic song, River deep mountain high. At least, it is regarded as a classic in Britain, where it was a top three hit. In America, it was only a very minor hit. Phil couldn't understand it and lost interest. He occasionally returned to production (notably on Let it be) but things were never the same again. It didn't help that the Supremes and Four Tops eventually had a big hit with a cover of River deep mountain high.

The Christmas album was something of a revolution in its time, at least where Christmas music was concerned, although all that Phil Spector actually did was apply his normal production style to Christmas music. The Crystals sing brilliant, energetic versions of Santa Claus is coming to town, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and Parade of the wooden soldiers. The Ronettes are equally brilliant on Frosty the snowman, Sleigh ride and I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus. Bob B Soxx and the Blue Jeans also excel on Bells of St Mary's and Here comes Santa Claus. Darlene Love sings four songs here. Christmas (Baby please come home) is the only original song here. White Christmas includes the rarely heard verse about being in Beverley Hills. The other two, Marshmallow world and Winter wonderland, are also outstanding. The closing Silent night is just a series of spoken acknowledgements set to a backing track. Don't worry about that - the twelve songs that go before set the standard for Christmas rock albums when it was first recorded and still do, because nobody has bettered it in the forty years since.

This is a brilliant boxed set and a fitting tribute to one of the most important producers in pop music history.

The sound quality is muddy and flat, no sparkle or crispness at all. Many of these were originally recorded in stereo, and there's really no excuse for those versions to be unavailable. Abkco is one of the worst reissue labels out there as far as the product quality is concerned, except for the Sam Cooke anthology. There are also ommissions in this set, such as Cher's first record, "Ringo, I Love You" which was released under the name Bonnie Jo Mason, and "I Can Hear Music" by The Ronettes (later covered by The Beach Boys). And as I said, the sound quality is very compressed and dull.