Chapter 1

Phil Spector Series – Chapter 1 - The Beginnings

Born January 10, 1903, Benjamin Spektor was ten when his parents, George and Bessie Spektor, and their seven children immigrated to the United States from Russia. They Americanized their last name to Spector during the immigration process at Ellis Island. Bertha Spektor was only a baby when her parents, George and Clara Spektor, immigrated to the United States from Russia by way of Paris on 4/29/1912. Both of these unrelated families settled in the Soundview section of the Bronx - a section predominantly made up of low and middle class Jewish immigrants. When Bertha became 21, she started dating Benjamin. Bertha and Benjamin got married in 1934. Their first child was named  Shirley and five years later, on 12/26/40, Harvey Phillip (Phil) was born. When Phil was only eight years old, on 4/20/49, Benjamin Spector committed suicide. He was buried in Beth Cemetery in Elmont, NY. 

Four years later, Bertha moved the family to Los Angeles to join other members of her family. They moved to Spaulding Avenue in West Hollywood. During his youth, Phil had developed an insatiable urge to learn the guitar, and, at age 13, Bertha gave him a guitar for his bar mitzvah. In September 1954, Phil enrolled in Hollywood’s Fairfax High School.

At Fairfax, Phil met Marshall Lieb, another student interested in music. They became good friends and began writing and playing songs together. They joined the Barons, the Fairfax music club, where they met Harvey Goldstein who would sometimes sing with them. Soon, Shirley moved into her own apartment, and Phil & Bertha moved to 726 North Haywood. About this time, Bertha arranged for Phil to meet Barney Kessel, his jazz guitar idol, who gave him tips on the music business as a career. This is also about the time that Phil started dating Donna Kass.

New rock and roll heroes like Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, and Buddy Holly were emerging almost daily. This spawned literally hundreds of home grown bands trying to make it big in the record business. Sister Shirley met Steve Douglas (Kreisman) and became his band’s manager. Phil and Marshall kept working on songs and forming a band. They met Michael Spencer who played piano and soon Spector, Lieb and Spencer formed a trio. The trio rehearsed at Donna Kass’ house where they met Donna’s friend, Annette Kleinbard. Annette joined the trio as a singer. During this time, the group met other local bands including the Sleepwalkers (Bruce Johnston, Kim Fowley, Sandy Nelson).  To learn more about the music business, Phil constantly visited recording studios in Hollywood - his favorite being Gold Star Sound at Santa Monica and Vine. The studio was owned by Dave Gold and Stan Ross and it had two echo chambers. Gold Star had been used by Ritchie Valens on “Donna” and Miss Toni Fisher on “The Big Hurt”. The studio engineer was Larry Levine. Phil absorbed everything he could from Levine, Gold and Ross.

It was 1957, and things were going well for Phil. He had his band which played gigs around town. He won a high school talent contest singing Lonnie Donegan’s “Rock Island Line”. Phil & Marshall entered an amateur hour contest called Rocket To Stardom on local television where they performed the Five Satins song “In The Still Of The Night”. They won the contest for that week. Phil continued to learn production techniques at Gold Star planning to eventually rent studio time to record his songs. In June of 1957, Phil graduated from high school. In the fall he enrolled at Los Angeles City College but kept gigging and rehearsing with Marshall, Goldstein and Kleinbard in hopes of soon making a record. Together they practiced Spector’s “Don’t You Worry My Little Pet” and by April had raised the money to record the song. On May 20, 1958 Marshall Lieb, Phil Spector, Annette Kleinbard and Harvey Goldstein went to Gold Star for their recording session. Stan Ross was engineer of the session. The result of this session was an acetate pressing of “Don’t You Worry My Little Pet”.

Phil took the acetate to Era records run by Lew Bedell and Herb Newman. Era had recently had a major hit with “The Wayward Wind” by Gogi Grant and wanted to start a subsidiary to record the new rock and roll music. Dore Records was formed named after Bedell’s son. A&R was set up for the label by hiring Lou Adler and Herb Alpert. Bedell & Newman auditioned Spector and the record. They liked it and wanted more. They offered Spector a deal for two singles – four songs. According to the contract, each group member was to receive one quarter of one and a half cents for every record sold. At this point the group still did not have a name. At Harvey Goldstein’s suggestion, the group came up with the name The Teddy Bears after Elvis Presley’s current hit.

A recording session was set up to record “Wonderful Loveable You” for the flip side of “Don’t You Worry My Little Pet”. Harvey Goldstein got drafted and had to miss the session. For drums, Spector recruited Sandy Nelson, the drummer for the Sleepwalkers (Bruce Johnston’s band now called Kip Tyler & the Flips). At the session, they recorded “Wonderful Loveable You” and another song Phil had written specifically for Annette’s voice, “To Know Him Is To Love Him”. The song’s title came from his father’s tombstone inscription “to know him was to love him”. The song was completed in only 20 minutes. Phil had made his first record - Don’t You Worry My Little Pet” / “To Know Him Is To Love Him” [Dore 503]. The powers that be at Dore decided “Don’t You Worry My Little Pet” should be the A side, and “To Know Him Is To Love Him” would be the B side of the scheduled August 1958 release. After a month, very little happened with the record on the local level. Dore tried again with the record – this time pushing “To Know Him Is To Love Him” as the A side. Still nothing – it looked like doom for the single. Meanwhile, a radio station in Fargo, North Dakota began playing “To Know Him Is To Love Him” regularly and orders began coming in for the record. Then the record started getting airplay in Minneapolis. The record had sold nearly 20,000 copies when it entered Billboard at #88 on September 22.  Bedell called Dick Clark in Philadelphia to help him promote the record, which was only a Midwest hit. Dick Clark played “To Know Him Is To Love Him” on American Bandstand on October 3, 1958. The following week, it entered the top 40, and on October 29th the Teddy Bears appeared live on Bandstand. By December 1, “To Know Him Is To Love Him” was #1 in the nation. It ended up selling nearly one and a half million copies. Since Harvey Goldstein was not on the record, Phil cut him from the group. Goldstein sued and won an out of court settlement. Spector finished the Dore contract by providing them with a second single, “Wonderful Loveable You”/”Till You’re Mine” [Dore520].

Immediately after the contract had been fulfilled, the Teddy Bears were signed to a much better contract by Imperial Records. Imperial wanted the group to record a full album before issuing another single. Spector spent more time working on the album than Imperial head Lou Chudd had patience for. Chudd put Jimmie Haskell in charge of the control room for the sessions and gave the Teddy Bears no input into what songs or arrangements to use. The album called The Teddy Bears Sing was quickly slapped together and released to the public. It met with minimal success, but Imperial did manage to squeeze out three Teddy Bears singles from the album “I Don’t Need You Anymore”/ “Oh Why” [Imperial 5562], “If Only You Knew” / “You Said Goodbye” [Imperial5581] and “Don’t Go Away” / “Seven Lonely Days [Imperial 5594] – none of which were very successful. Imperial also released a Phil Spector solo instrumental single “Bumbershoot” / “Willy Boy” [Imperial5583] as by Phil Harvey on Imperial, but it, too, went nowhere. Dore also released the second Teddy Bears single, “Wonderful Loveable You” / “Till You’re Mine,” which also failed.

Spector was already frustrated with Imperial and looking for a publisher during this time. He went to Gregmark, a publishing company run by Lester Sill and Lee Hazlewood. Sill was also connected with the publishing firm run by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. In April of 1959, Spector signed a publishing deal with Sill and Hazlewood’s Gregmark Publishing. As if things weren’t bad enough for the Teddy Bears on the charts, Annette had a serious car accident requiring months of recovery time. She did recover and even issued a single on Imperial as by Annette Bard, “Alibi” / “What Difference Does It Make” [Imperial 5643]. That single failed, and Kleinbard soon reinvented herself as Carol Connors. She began a successful song writing career and released several now sought after singles. The Teddy Bears fell apart with each member going off in his / her own musical direction.

Spector was totally absorbed in learning how to produce records from Sill and Hazlewood. He formed a new group, admittedly a carbon copy of the Teddy Bears, called The Spectors Three including himself, Ricki Page and Russ Titleman. The group recorded two singles for Trey Records, another Sill-Hazlewood run operation. They were “I Really Do” / “I Know Why” [Trey 3001] in 1959 and Mr. Robin” / “My Heart Stood Still” [Trey 3005] in 1960. Spector had little real interest in this group and even refused to perform with them on a local television show hosted by Wink Martindale. Titleman recruited two other friends to stand in for Spector and Page. For that appearance his stand-ins were Annette Merar and Warren Entner.

Spector had grown very close to Sill and even moved into his house with his family. He produced two records on the Trey label for Sill and traveled to New York with him on business trips. Those records were “Tears Me Up” / “Caught In The Act” [Trey 3003] by Greg Connors and “The Bells Of St. Mary’s” / “That’s Alright Baby” [Trey 3006] by Kell Osborne. On one of the New York trips, Sill introduced Spector to Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller who were also protégés of Sill. Jerry and Mike had moved to New York from Los Angeles and had become quite successful writing, publishing and producing records primarily for Atlantic Records.

When Spector was still only nineteen, Sill arranged a deal with Leiber and Stoller whereby Spector would be apprenticed to them as both a songwriter and producer for their Trio Music publishing firm in New York but still remain under contract with Sill and Hazlewood in Los Angeles. Spector moved back to New York to begin a new phase in his career.

 

Today’s songs:

To Know Him Is To Love Him – Teddy Bears

Wonderful Loveable You – Teddy Bears

Bumbershoot – Phil Harvey

I Really Do – Spectors Three

Mr. Robin – Spectors Three 


  

The OVER-NIGHT Reviews are in ... and our new PHIL SPECTOR Series is a HIT!!! 

Here's just SOME of the feedback that we've received already ... along with a couple of quick corrections and / or clarifications ... much more to come so please stay tuned!!!  (kk)

Hi Kent -

I wanted to thank you for the Phil Spector Part-1 feature.  I just love this sort of thing.  God bless you and keep up the good work!!!

Pat Fogel

STEVE did an OUTSTANDING job putting this series together ... I think you'll all be VERY pleased with all that's yet to come!  (kk)

Great Stuff! I love it!

Wild Bill

I love it!  Can't wait for Part 2!!!

Eddie

We're gonna SPECTORize you all month long, EDDIE ... LOTS more to come!  (kk)

The Spector article was extremely interesting.  I anxiously await more.

MARK

Wow!  This is great .... can't wait to learn more.  Thanks. 

Chris

If Part One is any indication of what is to come, we're in for another great Forgotten Hits Series ... can't wait to read the rest of your new Phil Spector piece.

Al C.

Al, we're JUST gettin' started!!!  (lol)  STEVE did an EXCELLENT job on this and along the way you'll discover some GREAT PHIL SPECTOR Music that you may not even have known existed!

CORRECTIONS and CLARIFICATIONS:

As I am reading this, I must turn your attention to the cemetery Phil Spector's father was buried in. It is Beth DAVID Cemetery in Elmont, NY, not Beth Cemetery. I know this because both my parents and grandparents (on my mother's side) and assorted other relatives, are buried there. I also have relatives on my father's side who are also buried there.  

Arlene

It is indeed Beth David Cementary - I have no idea how the David got dropped - I should have caught that.  

(Steve - SLK47)

Hi Kent,

Very wonderful feature you are doing for this month ... I am such an information Devil I can't help but also view other sources on what their editorials are saying and this is true of me for any article for that matter that I read.  I have enclosed a couple differences noted below in another source just as a form of information to You.

Thanks again for this wonderful series.

Conrad

What I've done below is print the item that you are questioning as it appeared in the original article, followed by the discrepancy that you found elsewhere, followed by STEVE KNUETTEL's response to this discrepancy (since HE is the guy who did the research for this piece.)  I will point out first, however, that WIKIPEDIA just may not be the most reliable source you can use as "gospel" ... so much so that our kids in college were told by their instructors that it was the ONE AND ONLY source that they could NOT use when researching their papers.  Because it is put together via contributions from virtually ANYBODY who has an opinion to share ... often times without ANY basis for facts to support these claims or opinions ... we'll print what they SAY but ONLY with the disclaimer that states "You'd better check three or four OTHER sources FIRST before you accept THIS source as gospel."  Fair enough??? 

Here ya go:

>>>Both of these unrelated families settled in the Soundview section of the Bronx  

(Steve - SLK47)

Very interesting article but I had looked up an alternative source on Spector via "Wikipedia" which seems to contradict the above line from the first Paragraph in your Article ...... Quote, "Spector's parents were first cousins"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Spector#Early_life

LOL!  I completely agree with your assessment of Wikipedia’s reliability - even though I do often check it for information. School is out on this issue. Some sources (wikipedia) lend credibility to Ben and Bertha being first cousins, others say it is questionable and others say they were unrelated. In "Tearing Down The Wall Of Sound - The Rise & Fall Of Phil Spector," author Mick Brown addresses this issue on page 16 with no real conclusions, saying the issue's truth is "now lost to time."  For Phil's parents (Benjamin & Bertha) to be first cousins, two of their parents would have to have been siblings. Benjamin's parents were George & Bessie. Bertha's parents were George & Clara. It is very unlikey that the two Georges were brothers (unless they were Foremans.)  Could Clara and Bessie be sisters? Could Benjamin's George be Clara's brother? Could Bertha's George be Bessie's brother? Dave Thompson (in his book "Wall Of Pain - The Biography Of Phil Spector") skirts the issue by pointing out that when Bertha started dating Benjamin "it (both being Spectors) provoked a few laughs and light hearted teasing 'I hope he's not a long lost cousin'."  I don't recall where I read it, but I do remember reading an article (probably online - hmmm maybe www.Spectropop.com) that said the two families were unrelated when discussing the common Russian background and last names of Spektor. Who ya gonna believe - Wikipedia or a source I can't locate? I'll let you know if I find anything definitive on this.   

(Steve - SLK47)

>>>Bertha arranged for Phil to meet Barney Kessel, his jazz guitar idol, who gave him tips on the music business as a career. This is also about the time that Phil started dating Donna Kass.  (Steve - SLK47)

My article seems to give sole credit to Stan Ross as the man who affected Spector's career the most.  Quote:  "Spector also began visiting local recording studios, and he eventually managed to win the confidence of record producer Stan Ross, co-owner of Gold Star Studios in Hollywood, who began to tutor the young man in record production and who exerted a major influence on Spector's production style."

I hardly think sole credit for Stan Ross is correct, but Stan certainly was an early influence especially in Phil's formative studio work. There are many who influenced Phil, not to mention Stan Ross, Barney Kessel, Lester Sill, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller and others.  (Steve - SLK47)

Kent,

Just catching up on the recent FORGOTTEN HITS issues and read today's posting on PHIL SPECTOR. 

I was reading where a station in Fargo, North Dakota, broke out his hit by the TEDDY BEARS, "TO KNOW HIM IS TO LOVE HIM."  I was wondering if it was the station I used to listen to when I was a kid, KFGO. 

I know Charlie Boone (WCCO) used to work there probably right around that time -- "Charley Boone in the afternoon."  It was back in the day a person could play a flipside on a gut feeling -- so many hits were discovered that way. 

Fargo always had great radio -- my brother-in-law, Barry Chase (WQXI - Atlanta) worked at KQWB in Fargo for a few years and some great talent came through there.  Chuck Knapp (WLS and KS-95-Minneapolis / St. Paul), Chuck Dann (Cleveland), Deano Day (Detroit), Paul Miller (KOMA - Oklahoma City), and more. 

I remember many nights also listening to WLS the BIG-89 -- Don Phillips, Fred Winston, Larry Lujack, John Records Landecker  -- Clark Weber was there at that time, too!  Great music and great radio -- a fun time. 

You can refine audio and go with a digital signal but the key is capturing the magic! 

Keep up the great work --

GREAT READING MAKES FOR GREAT MEMORIES AND VICE-VERSA. 

Thanks, Kent.

Best Regards,

Tim Kiley / KDZA

From Steve:

Yes, in fact it was KFGO - It was DJ Charlie Boone on his "Boone In The Afternoon" Show. Boone is famous not only for kick starting "To Know Him Is To Love Him," but also for being the last ever host of a Buddy Holly concert. For the record, the Minneapolis station was KDWB - program director Lou Riegert insisted all DJs at the station played the record.  (Steve - SLK47)

Radio just doesn't take the chances it used to take ... WAY too rigidly formatted now ... NOBODY's willing to take a chance anymore playing something OFF the list so EVERYBODY ends up playing the same stuff ... radio stations don't "break" hits anymore ... they just follow suit and jump onboard with what everybody else TELLS them is a hit.  I don't think we'll EVER see as exciting a time in music again ... where a B-SIDE could outperform an A-Side because the PUBLIC decided it was a hit rather than the so-called label and industry "experts."  Back then, WE knew what we liked ... now we're so used to being TOLD what we're SUPPOSED to like that the fun and spontaneous aspect of most music has disappeared.  Really sad. 

Thanks, TIM!  (kk)


CLICK HERE TO MOVE ON TO CHAPTER 2:

https://fhphilspector.blogspot.com/2021/04/chapter-2.html

YOU CAN ALSO USE THE ARCHIVE DROP DOWN TO RETURN TO ANY CHAPTER OF YOUR CHOOSING:

https://fhphilspector.blogspot.com/