Phil's Spectre: A Wall of Soundalikes

Artist: Various Artists
Label: Ace Records UK
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 029667197823
EAN: 0029667197823
ASIN: B0000C3HHW

Release Date: 2003-10-02

Phil's Spectre: A Wall of Soundalikes

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Tracks:

When You Walk in the Room - Jackie DeShannon
Run, Run, Run - The Supremes
Just You - Sonny & Cher
Why Do Fools Fall in Love - The Beach Boys
Too Hurt to Cry, Too Much in Love to Say Goodbye - Darnells
On the Spanish Side - The Corsairs, Landy McNeil
Hang On - Wall of Sound
Tremblin' - Gene Pitney
Little Love (Will Go a Long Way) - Alder Ray
All Strung Out - April Stevens, Nino Tempo
When the Boy's Happy (The Girl's Happy Too) - Four Pennies
(You're My) Soul and Inspiration - The Righteous Brothers
You're So Fine - Dorothy Berry
Missin' My Baby - Clydie King
It Breaks My Heart - Ray Raymond
Yes Sir, That's My Baby - Hale & The Hushabyes
Love Her - The Walker Brothers
And That Reminds Me - Dolls
Boys Town (Where My Broken Hearted Buddies Go) - Nino Tempo
My Baby Looks, But He Don't Touch - Carol Connors
He Will Break Your Heart - Kane & Abel
I Just Couldn't Say - Lorraine & the Delights
I Can't Make It Alone - P.J. Proby
Please Phil Spector - Mike Lendell & The Attack,

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Hard Workin' Man - The Jack Nitzsche Story Volume 2
The Complete Phil Spector Sessions
Where the Girls Are, Vol. 4

Album Description

Full Title - Phil's Spectre - A Wall Of Sound-a-likes. 2003 compilation highlights the enigmatic geniuses' influence during his formative years as well as on the singers, songwriters, musicians, arrangers, & producers he worked with. More than half of the 24 tracks here are making their (legal) CD debut. Artists include Jackie DeShannon, The Supremes, Sonny & Cher, The Beach Boys, The Darnells, & many more. Ace.

Album Details

24 Tracks that Document the Influence of Spector on 60's Popular Music. More Than Half of These Tracks Make their Legal CD Debut and Are the Original 45 Mono Mixes.

Customer Reviews:

The Sincerest Form Of Flattery.......2005-11-30

Phil Spector was a millionaire at the age of 23, after producing 15 hits in a row, including classics by the Ronettes and the Crystals. He had his own record label, Philles, and was the creator of his trademark Wall Of Sound, usually manufactured at the Gold Star Studios in Hollywood, with a crack team of musicians including the Wrecking Crew and a host of session singers. As an auteur producer, probably the first of the breed, he was the acknowledged master, and his success engendered a whole genre of other groups and performers from New York to Los Angeles, like the Chiffons and the Shangri-Las, whose producers tried to emulate the sound and the success of the young svengali.
This collection brilliantly demonstrates some of the most notable efforts, with "many tracks reissued legally for the first time", as it says on the back. Spector wasn't easy to work with and the number of former acolytes who left the fold and set up in competition to try to beat him at his own game is almost a genre in itself: Sonny and Cher, the Righteous Brothers, Nino Tempo and April Stevens, Carol Connors and the writers Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich are all included here.
Rival companies such as Motown weren't above experimenting with the Spector sound in the early days, and there are two examples, one by the Supremes and one featuring the great Gladys Horton, moonlighting from the Marvelettes. For some, emulating Spector was a form of homage and tribute, as with Brian Wilson, whose own style developed from studying Phil Spector. His girl group productions were often pastiche, while the Beach Boys' Spectorish version of Why Do Fools Fall In Love? was probably inspired by Ronnie (later Ronnie Spector) of the Ronettes' love of the Frankie Lymon original. The Walker Brothers also owed a debt to Spector for the sound on their British hits, of which the first, Love Her, chosen here, was arranged by one of Spector's right hand men, Jack Nitzsche.
The Chiffons appear in their extra Spector-like guise as the Four Pennies on the chart-storming, if non-PC, Barry/Greenwich song When The Boy's Happy (The Girl's Happy Too), and there is a wonderful Wall Of Sound transformation of the Falcon's You're So Fine by Dorothy Berry, the wife of Richard Berry, who went on to become one of Ray Charles' Raelettes. One of the groups included even call themselves The Wall Of Sound, whilst another proclaims itself A Spectra Production. Every track has earned its place on this fascinating glimpse at some of the impact Spector had on the music scene between 1963 and 1967

There is a better Beach Boys cover of Spector's work.......2005-05-04

A better selection from the Beach Boys would have been "I Can Hear Music", certainly the definitive Spector cover. It easily bests the original while keeping its spirit intact. It doesn't merely ape Spectre; it becomes its own work. There's no denying the Spector influence on the Beach Boys, particularly Brian, but "I Can Hear Music" is an example of how Brian and the group assimilated, then surpassed, Spectre's technique. "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" is a slight piece of filler from the group's early days that doesn't display the group's prowess in the studio at its best and is a pretty weak tribute to Spector as well (likewise the group's cover of "Then I Kissed Her", thankfully overlooked for this collection.)

Ace album of Phil Spector Wall of Soundalikes.......2003-12-30

This isn't the first CD to catalog pop songs that were influenced by Phil Spector's revolutionary "Wall of Sound" production technique, but it's certainly among the best. Unlike grey-market items such as the three-volume Japanese "Touch the Wall of Sound" (reissued as a triple-disc in the past few years), this is a sanctioned release, and the ear-popping quality of the masters (including true stereo for tracks 1-2, 9-10, and 12) tells the tale.

It's really no surprise to anyone familiar with Spector's landmark singles of the early-60s that his sound had far reaching influence. It was borrowed by many of his partners, assistants and former artists, such as arranger Jack Nitzsche, go-fer Sonny Bono, former Teddy Bear bandmate Marshall Lieb, and Righteous Brother Bill Medley. Nitzsche's production of "When You Walk in the Room" builds up layers of guitars, percussion and strings in support of Jackie DeShannon's impassioned vocal. It's truly amazing that this brilliant record had little commercial success and has been all but totally eclipsed in the public consciousness by the Searchers hit cover. At least DeShannon collected songwriter's royalties! Bono's 1965 recording with Cher of "Just You" is filled with Spectorian touches of glockenspiel, strings and the underlying Wall of Sound. Lieb's "A Little Love (Will Go a Long Way)" (co-penned by `60s stalwart Gary Zekley) sounds as much like a Darlene Love tune as anything Love actually recorded; but it's not - it's Alder Ray on lead, with Love guiding the backing vocals. Medley helmed the Righteous Brothers kickoff single for Verve (having split with Spector), Mann & Weil's "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration," and showed that the duo's sound was as much their own as Spector's.

Spector's sound had its impact at more of a distance, as well. Early efforts by the Supremes often sounded more like Brill Building girl-group productions than Motown's trademark soul sound. Other early Motown acts like The Darnells were also treated to the percussion and vocal layers of The Wall of Sound. More famously, Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson was a thorough Spector devotee. The group's take on Frankie Lymon's "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" marries the Beach Boys' multipart harmonies to the shifting backing of Spector's wall.

Mick Patrick's song-by-song liner notes are wonderfully informative, providing valuable background on both the better-known and obscure sides that helps place these tracks in context with Spector's own work. Vintage photos, picture sleeve and 7" label reproductions flesh out a superb booklet for a wonderfully curated disc.

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