Harvey Phillip Spector (December 26, 1939 – January 16, 2021) was an American record producer, musician, and songwriter known for his innovative recording practices and entrepreneurship in the 1960s, followed decades later by his two trials and conviction for murder in the 2000s. Spector developed the Wall of Sound, a production style that he described as a Wagnerian approach to rock and roll. He is regarded as one of the most influential figures in pop music history and as the first auteur of the music industry for the unprecedented control he had over every phase of the recording process.
Born in the Bronx, Spector moved to Los Angeles as a teenager and began his career in 1958 as a founding member of the Teddy Bears, for which he penned "To Know Him Is to Love Him", a U.S. number-one hit. In 1960, after working as an apprentice to Leiber and Stoller, Spector co-founded Philles Records, and at the age of 21 became the youngest ever U.S. label owner to that point. Dubbed the "First Tycoon of Teen", Spector produced acts such as the Ronettes, the Crystals, and Ike & Tina Turner. He typically collaborated with arranger Jack Nitzsche, engineer Larry Levine, and a de facto house band later known as "the Wrecking Crew". Spector was the decade's most successful record producer.
In the early 1970s, Spector produced the Beatles' Let It Be (1970) and several solo records by John Lennon and George Harrison. By the mid-1970s, Spector had produced eighteen U.S. Top 10 singles for various artists. His chart-toppers included "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" (co-written and produced for the Righteous Brothers, 1964), "The Long and Winding Road" (produced for the Beatles, 1970), and "My Sweet Lord" (co-produced for Harrison, 1970). Following one-off productions for Leonard Cohen (Death of a Ladies' Man, 1977), Dion DiMucci (Born to Be with You, 1975), and the Ramones (End of the Century, 1980), Spector remained largely inactive amid a lifestyle of seclusion, drug use, and increasingly erratic behavior.
Spector helped establish the role of the studio as an instrument, the integration of pop art aesthetics into music (art pop), and the genres of art rock and dream pop. His honors include the 1973 Grammy Award for Album of the Year for co-producing Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh (1971), a 1989 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and a 1997 induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2004, Spector was ranked number 63 on Rolling Stone's list of the greatest artists in history. In 2009, after spending three decades in semi-retirement, he was convicted for the 2003 murder of the actress Lana Clarkson and sentenced to 19 years to life in prison, where he remained until his death in 2021.