I am dysfunctional by choice, and I love my attitude problem.
~Phil Spector

If the average man is made in God’s image, then Mozart was plainly superior to God.
~Phil Spector

Strictly speaking, Phil Spector wasn’t even a performer — he’s a musician, but he very rarely released records under his name. However, as a producer — and, to a significant extent, songwriter, label owner, and session player — he has influenced the course of rock & roll for more than all but a handful of performers.
~Richie Unterberger (allmusic.com)

The Ronettes – Be My Baby – Stereo:

From Wikipedia:

Birth name	Harvey Phillip Spector
Born	December 26, 1939 (age 73)
Origin	The Bronx, New York City, U.S.
Genres	Pop, rock
Occupations	Record producer, songwriter, session musician
Instruments	Guitar, piano
Years active	1958–2009
Labels	Philles Records, A&M Records, Apple Records, Warner Spector, Phil Spector International, Pavillion Records, ABKCO Records, Sony Legacy
Associated acts	The Ronettes The Crystals Darlene Love The Righteous Brothers John Lennon The Teddy Bears Ike and Tina Turner George Harrison Dion DiMucci The Ramones The Beatles (Let It Be) Leonard Cohen Ben E. King Gene Pitney Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans The Wrecking Crew Starsailor, Ronnie Spector, Sonny Charles and the Checkmates Ltd., Cher, Cher & Harry Nilsson, Jerri Bo Keno.
Website	http://philspector.com

Ike & Tina Turner – River Deep – Mountain High:

Phillip Harvey “Phil” Spector (born Harvey Phillip Spector on December 26, 1939) is an American record producer and songwriter.

The originator of the “Wall of Sound” production technique, Spector was a pioneer of the 1960s girl-group sound and produced over 25 Top 40 hits in 1960–1965. Some of his famous girl groups are The Ronettes and The Crystals. After this initial success, Spector later worked with artists including Ike and Tina Turner, John Lennon, George Harrison, and the Ramones with similar acclaim. He produced The Beatles’ album Let It Be, and the Grammy Award–winning Concert for Bangladesh by former Beatle George Harrison. In 1989, Spector was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer. The 1965 song “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'”, produced and co-written by Spector for The Righteous Brothers, is listed by BMI as the song with the most U.S. airplay in the 20th century.

In 2009, Spector was convicted of second-degree murder in the 2003 shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson in his Alhambra, California home. He is serving a prison sentence of 19 years to life.

Righteous Brothers – You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’:

The Wall of Sound:

The Wall of Sound is a music production technique for pop and rock music recordings developed by record producer Phil Spector at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles, California, during the early 1960s. Working with such audio engineers as Larry Levine and the session musicians who became known as The Wrecking Crew, Spector created a dense, layered, reverberant sound that came across well on AM radio and jukeboxes popular in the era. He created this sound by having a number of electric and acoustic guitarists perform the same parts in unison, adding musical arrangements for large groups of musicians up to the size of orchestras, then recording the sound using an echo chamber.

Album of the day:

Back to Mono (1958–1969) – Released November 12, 1991

 

At the time Back to Mono was released in 1991, Phil Spector’s reputation as one of pop’s great visionaries was intact, but there was no way to hear his genius. It wasn’t just that there were no collections spotlighting his productions, there weren’t collections of artists he produced. It wasn’t until Back to Mono that there was a thorough overview of Spector’s greatest work, and while it’s not without flaws, it still stands as one of the great box sets.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine (allmusic.com)

Back to Mono is not available on spotify… So we’ll have to do with another collection:

Other December 26:

• Curtis Lee Mayfield (June 3, 1942 – December 26, 1999) was an African-American soul, R&B, and funk singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known for his anthemic music with The Impressions during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and for composing the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly, Mayfield is highly regarded as a pioneer of funk and of politically conscious African-American music. He was also a multi-instrumentalist who played the guitar, bass, piano, saxophone, and drums. Curtis Mayfield is a winner of both the Grammy Legend Award (in 1994) and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (in 1995), and was a double inductee into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted as a member of The Impressions into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, and again in 1999 as a solo artist. He is also a two-time Grammy Hall of Fame inductee.
  
• Jay Farrar (born December 26, 1966 in Belleville, Illinois) is an American songwriter and musician currently based in St. Louis, Missouri. A veteran of two critically acclaimed music groups, Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt, he began his solo music career in 2001. Beyond his established talents as a songwriter, he is a guitarist, harmonicist, and a vocalist.
  

-Egil