Bronx Boys

RIP Bronx-born music maven Phil Spector, 82. In 1958 as co-founder, guitarist, and vocalist of the Teddy Bears, he wrote To Know Him Is to Love Him, sung by Carol Connors (Annette Kleinbard), which hit #1. In 1960 he co-founded Philles Records, becoming at 21 the youngest ever USA label owner to that point. He soon developed the Wall of Sound, a music production formula he described as a Wagnerian approach to rock and roll. He had control of every phase of the process, the first in history to enjoy the privilege. His house band was later known as the Wrecking Crew, whose members are legends themselves. Here are songs Spector produced and, in some cases wrote, that cracked the USA Top Ten:
Corrine, Corrina — Ray Peterson (11/21/1960, #9)
Pretty Little Angel Eyes — Curtis Lee (7/3/1961, #7)
I Love How You Love Me — The Paris Sisters (10/30/1961, #5)
Second Hand Love — Connie Francis (6/9/1962, #7)
He’s a Rebel — The Crystals (11/3/1962, #1)
Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah — Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans (1/12/1963, #8)
Da Doo Ron Ron (When He Walked Me Home) — The Crystals (6/8/1963, #3)
Then He Kissed Me — The Crystals (8/17/1963, #6)
Be My Baby — The Ronettes (10/12/1963, #2)
Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home) — Darlene Love (I don’t believe it charted, but it is now a staple of the holiday season.)
You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ — The Righteous Brothers (2/6/1965 #1, the most radio play of any 20th century song.)
Just Once in My Life — The Righteous Brothers (5/15/1965, #9)
Unchained Melody — The Righteous Brothers (8/28/1965, #4)
Ebb Tide — The Righteous Brothers (1/8/1966, #5)
Instant Karma (We All Shine On) — John Lennon (3/28/1970, #3)
The Long and Winding Road — The Beatles (6/13/1970, #1)
My Sweet Lord — George Harrison (12/26/1970, #1)
What Is Life — George Harrison (3/27/1971, #10)
Imagine — John Lennon (11/13/1971, #3)
In 1966 he composed and produced the Ike & Tina Turner album River Deep — Mountain High. In 1970 he produced The Beatles’ Let It Be, George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, and John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band’s Plastic Ono Band. In 1971 it was John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band’s Imagine and The Concert for Bangladesh. In 1973 it was Harrison’s Living in the Material World. In ’75 it was Lennon’s Rock n Roll and Dion’s Born to Be with You. In 1977 it was Leonard Cohen’s Death of a Ladies’ Man. In 1980 it was the Ramones’ End of the Century. In 1981 it was Yoko Ono’s Season of Glass.
At IMDb there are 248 credits under his name in the category of Soundtrack, and two as Actor. He was a drug dealer in Easy Rider (1969) and he appeared in an episode of I Dream of Jeannie.
He exhibited bizarre behavior for decades, accused of abuse by his second wife Ronnie Spector, lead singer of the Ronettes, and by his children, and by the Ramones. He was convicted of shooting actress Lana Clarkson to death in 2003. He died in prison. How did it all go so wrong? Was it drugs? In 1949 his father committed suicide. Spector was nine. Is that evidence of faulty genetic makeup? On his dad’s gravestone are inscribed these words “Ben Spector. Father. Husband. To Know Him Was To Love Him.” In 1974 he suffered a near fatal car wreck. Did that exacerbate his brain chemistry? Who can say? Others have suffered similarly and not abused or killed anyone. He will take the mystery to the grave. The best of him will live on through his work and those he has influenced, including me. I play two of his songs on guitar. (Facts from Wiki)

Last night Movies!, channel 5–2 on ota’s in NYC, finally ran a certain title in prime time in which I was highly interested: I Was a Communist for the F.B.I. (1951), directed by Gordon Douglas, screenplay by Crane Wilbur based on articles from the Saturday Evening Post gleaned from Matt Cvetic, who was recruited by the nation’s premier law enforcement agency to infiltrate the red menace. I was surprised by the serious manner in which the story was depicted. I’d expected an action flick peppered with passé dialog and simplistic heroics. One’s opinion, of course, would likely coincide with what side of the political aisle one inhabits. Frank Lovejoy stars. He was one of my early favorites, as several WWII movies in which he starred, including Home of the Brave (1949), played regularly on channel nine back in the day. Born in the Bronx, he was on Broadway by 1934. He found a niche in radio, then went on to Hollywood, where he was comfortable on either the big or small screen. There are 55 titles listed under his name at IMDb, including 51 appearances in two TV series in which he starred: Man Against Crime and The Adventures of McGraw. His most significant movie credits, besides the aforementioned, are: In a Lonely Place (1950), arguably Bogie’s greatest performance; and House of Wax (1953). Tragically, he was taken by a heart attack at 50 in 1962. At the time he was appearing in Gore Vidal’s The Best Man at a playhouse in Jersey. Here’s a still from the flick. Beside him is Delores Hart, who left Hollywood at 24 to become a nun. She is 82. Her story never gets old for me.

Headline from nypost.com: “I interned in Trump’s White House — am I now unemployable?” Maybe not if you attend one of those re-education camps liberals hope to create… And another sign of the times in this one: “Drones are replacing cowboys to track cattle in new study.” Puts a unique spin on riding off into the sunset.

The lack of parking at my usual nook sent me to my alternate book selling site, and it proved fortuitous. The weather was friendly and business was better than usual despite there being fewer folks out and about on this holiday. My thanks to the only Asian buying books these days, who overcompensated me for six paperback mysteries by writers such as Robert B. Parker and John D. McDonald. I appreciated it so much I gave him a copy of Class of ’67, which he’d showed interest in recently. My thanks also to the woman who purchased Me Before You by Jojo Moyes and another large paperback whose title escapes me; and to the gentleman who purchased the massive How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food by Mark Bittman and a large tome on baking light desserts; and to the gentleman who bought Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture by Daniel Mendelsohn and Beyond the Horizon: Visions of the New Millennium by Walter Mercado; and to the gentleman who parked his scooter and selected Volcanoes in Human History: The Far-Reaching Effects of Major Eruptions by Jelle Zeilinga de Boer and Donald Theodore Sanders.

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