Dee Dee Phelps

Gold Star sound engineer, Larry Levin, re-wound the massive tape reel, setting forth a cacophony of babble and music. The tape slowed and finally halted. Phil Spector, sitting in the control booth, leaned his head towards a microphone connecting the booth with Studio A.

           

“Sing it again,” he instructed.

Standing alone and wearing a headset, Lala, lead singer for the Crystals, nodded and waited to hear the sound track repeat in her ears. Phil Spector was in the process of creating his first “wall-of-sound” Christmas album, recorded with cutting edge technology, four tracks in monaural.

             Lala sand, “It’s such lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you.”

             “Cut,” Phil shouted. Then he told Lala, “Do it again.”

And so the marathon began.I’d been invited to sit in on a Phil Spector recording session by Stan Ross, owner of Gold Star Recording Studios in Los Angeles. By then Dick and I had several hit records and were starting to produce other acts. Stan wanted me to come into the studio to observe a maestro at work.

            “It’s such lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you.”

 

            “Again.”

 

By the time I’d walked into Gold Star, most of the musical tracks had been cut and voices

recorded in New York. For some reason, Phil appeared dissatisfied with one line in one

song and booked studio time in Los Angeles to fix the problem.

 

            “Sing it again.”

 

I observed Lala’s eyes glancing at Phil through the studio window, full of trust in his

guidance. I realized she’d probably sing that line a thousand times, and be happy to do so,

if he asked. And he just might.

 

Phil wasn’t drinking or doing drugs that day at Gold Star in the Sixties. As far as I could tell, he wasn’t carrying a gun. He was simply doing what he did best, producing music. At the peak of his form, with closed eyes, focused on the sound coming from the speakers, he commanded, “Sing it again.”

 

 As a teenager, Phil had written and recorded a hit song with the Teddy Bears, “To Know Him Is To Love Him.” He copied the song title from his father’s grave stone.

 

            “Sing the line again.”

 

            “It’s such lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you.”

 

Finally, after an hour Phil took a break. Animated and happy he told the sound engineer, “I just became a member of the Young Millionaires Club. They only take members under thirty years of age. I’m the only one who shows up at the meeting wearing jeans and a tee shirt, with long hair. Everyone else dresses in suits and ties. They don’t know what to make of me.”

 

He shot a smile in my direction, but seeing me reminded him of the task at hand, getting a perfect version of one line in the song.

 

            “Let’s go,” he shouted to Lala. “Try that line again.”

 

            It’s such lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you.”

           

After what seemed like a hundred more takes, I finally left the studio, leaving Lala sitting on a stool in front of the microphone and Phil in the control booth. I felt exhausted. I couldn’t tell the difference each time Lala sang her one line. By now Phil had at least a thousand takes to choose from and he was still recording more! Was he really a musical genius or was he just obsessive? I felt positive that if I were in Phil Spector’s shoes, I could have settled on the best line in the first hour.

 

As I drove off I pondered the question, why did Lala put up with Phil? And then I realized how important it was for a recording artist to have full confidence in the producer’s judgment.

 

Later, when Dick and I produced a Reprise Records session for Jill Jackson (she sang professionally as Paula of Paul and Paula) I thought I heard something unusual on the track and asked her to sing it again. She smiled and said, “Oh, sure.” We wound up repeating the song seven or eight more times to get it right. I took pride in the fact we only took an hour to record an entire song while it took Phil Spector an hour to record one line. Everyone felt convinced we had created a hit single.

 

But you don’t know what sounds the public likes. Our session with Paula never produced a hit record but Phil’s Christmas album was played on the air every Christmas for the next forty years and became a Golden Classic.