NME | Music, Film, TV, Gaming & Pop Culture News
Phil Spector’s frequent collaborator Darlene Love has recalled warning the producer about his behaviour, telling him that “one of these days you’re gonna hurt somebody”.
The music producer, who was serving 19 years to life in prison for the murder of Lana Clarkson, died last week (January 16) after reportedly relapsing in his recovery from coronavirus.
In a new interview with The Times, Love spoke about Spector’s legacy as both a producer and a murderer, asking: “Is he going to be remembered for that or will he be remembered for murdering Lana Clarkson? It is unimaginable to me that someone so talented could not see through life and kept on making the same mistake until it got worse and worse.”
Love, who worked with Spector in the early ‘60s on such hit singles as ‘He’s A Rebel’, ‘(Today I Met) The Boy I’m Gonna Marry’ and the Christmas classic ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’, then spoke of the times she called Spector out on his behaviour after he brandished a gun in a studio in 1965.
“I was known as the one who would speak my mind,” Love said. “Phil always let me put my two cents in… until he got too controlling.”
Speaking of the incident, she added: “[The musicians in the studio] shouted, ‘Phil is waving a gun around. He’s gone crazy’. I ain’t gonna bother with that. I’m going home.
“Then I get a phone call from Phil. ‘Oh, come on, Darl, the guns are gone. We’ve got business to take care of.’ I told him, ‘You know what, man? One of these days you’re gonna hurt somebody.’ He said he was just fooling around. ‘Yeah, fooling around with guns. That’s how people get shot.’”
In another recent interview, Love spoke of Spector’s “dark side”, saying she first witnessed it when he returned from a trip to London.
Describing him as a “completely different guy”, the singer said that was when she saw “the real nasty side of Phil Spector; the controlling part.”
Writing about Spector’s legacy following his death last week, NME wrote: “Though Spector was the original pop auteur, influencing such pivotal acts as The Beach Boys, The Velvet Underground, Dusty Springfield, Bruce Springsteen, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Spiritualized and My Bloody Valentine (his work also formed the foundations of movements such as shoegaze, art rock and dream pop), it’s Lana Clarkson’s murder that will be remembered most on his death.”
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