Beginning with the sound of a jack
hammer and the sight of construction dust and climaxing with a solo violin
playing Edward Elgar at a girl groups like The Crystals (He’s a Rebel/Then
He Kissed Me), The Ronettes (Be My Baby), finally graduating to work
with rock’s British invasion aristocracy: The Beatles (The Long and Winding
Road), George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord, climaxing with John Lennon’s
Women is the Nigger of the World.
Between 18 and 26 my musical world
was ruled by dueling AM rock stations: “Fabulous 57, WMCA, home of the hits,
home of the good guys,” and MUSIC RADIO WABC, the 50 thousand watt clear
channel behemoth that burned its logo and insidiously catchy jingles into the
brains of the pre-Woodstock generation. Since rock radio needed a big sound to
offset AM’s puny low fidelity, Spector’s “little symphonies for kids,” with
their ear grabbing back beats were the perfect coming out of the news audience
hooks.
The Agony and The Ecstasy of
Phil Spector does feature a relatively coherent sit down chat with its
obviously troubled subject, unfortunately the career review is illustrated by
visually incoherent slices from Court TV’s coverage of his first murder trial.
We do learn how hard it was to be a rock Mozart on sixties mono mixing boards,
how he never got the respect he thought he deserved – despite his 1989
induction into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame – how he reacted when Martin
Scorsese “ripped off” one of his works of genius for the opening needle drop to
Mean Streets and how he could endure almost any sound in the pop world,
except that of the Plastic Yoko Ono band.
Oh, yes, and we do learn the secret
behind some of the worst hair days in rock history. As exploitive as the doc
that stirred up so much trouble for the late Michael Jackson, The Agony and
The Ecstasy of Phil Spector plays at the Roxie