Tearing Down the Wall of Sound
The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally here.) You would think that a person could do no wrong by penning a biography of infamous record producer and......more

Mick Brown is an amazing rock journalist. He captures all the excitement, all the terror, all the madness of Phil Spector's decades-long reign as rock and roll's original mad genius. Not only does he score amazing commentary from the musicians, singers, and producers who were there, but he finds the......more

Just as Jon Berendt's classic "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" began as an assignment for Esquire magazine, Mick Brown's "Tearing Down the Wall of Sound" has as its genesis a similar assignment for the magazine Daily Telegraph. And, just as "Midnight" evolved into something exponentially la......more

I need an update! This book was written after the death of Lana Clarkson, but before the two trials that would send Spector to prison. After watching David Mamet's made for HBO hagiography of Phil Spector (sadly, ironically, starring Al Pacino, whom Spector always longed to have portray him in a mov......more

Fascinating biography of Spector written after the murder of Lana Clarkson but before the two trials which ended up with his imprisonment. It would be nice to have an updated version of the book to include the court case as reading it now makes the narrative seem incomplete. Nevertheless, this is a bo......more