When a record gets that big, everybody wants to know where the money is. Because somebody is makin’ some. You look at your own bank account and you know it ain't you. | | | | Ronnie Spector circa 1980.
(Richard E. Aaron/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | | “When a record gets that big, everybody wants to know where the money is. Because somebody is makin’ some. You look at your own bank account and you know it ain't you.”
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| | rantnrave:// Lost in the discussion of the monumentally influential and infamously abusive producer who died in prison Saturday—he was also, in the end, a convicted murderer—is that he was one of two towering pop producers we lost in the past week. The other, who died three days earlier of congestive heart failure, age 69, had a much shorter career as a pop hitmaker. But what a hit. ED FLETCHER, better known as DUKE BOOTEE, wasn't a member of GRANDMASTER FLASH AND THE FURIOUS FIVE but he was the primary writer and, officially, co-producer (by most accounts, that "co-" isn't necessary) of the single that made their career and set hip-hop on a path it's still more or less following 39 years later. He recorded most of the music alone (under the influence of BRIAN ENO and DAVID BYRNE's MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS) and he's one of the two rappers on the track, along with MELLE MEL; that's Fletcher who opens "THE MESSAGE" by intoning one of the song's two devastating hooks: "It's like a jungle sometimes / It makes me wonder how I keep from going under." Fletcher, a jazz and R&B percussionist who was part of the SUGAR HILL RECORDS house band, would go on to make a handful of additional singles with Melle Mel, including "THE MESSAGE II" and "NEW YORK NEW YORK." They, too, were credited to Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five—not unlike the way a few of that other producer's greatest songs were attributed to groups who had little or nothing to do with making them. Literally separating the artist from the art, as it were. Possibly separating the artist from the money, too. Fletcher got out of the sordid business relatively early and spent his later years getting advanced degrees and teaching critical thinking and communication at Savannah State University in Georgia. He was beloved. The other producer, who spent his twilight years in a much darker place, is this week's poster child for discussions about separating the art from the artist. I knew PHIL SPECTOR's classic productions for the RONETTES, the CRYSTALS and so many other early pop giants, many of them Black women, long before I knew his name, and I had absorbed their symphonic sonics long before I had any clue how to talk about them. Vulture's BILL WYMAN describes the wall of sound like this in the best telling of Spector's life story I've read this week: "one or two or three pianos, four or five or six guitars, as many bassists, drummers and percussionists, all playing together, precisely, and recorded with preternatural care to form a tsunami of aural effect." It was much too much too much and it was perfect. RONNIE SPECTOR, DARLENE LOVE, LALA BROOKS and BILL MEDLEY are among the singers who built miraculous pop skyscrapers on top of it, and there'll never be any reason to separate those artists from that art, much as Spector himself might have tried. Attempts to separate Spector from his own art, on the other hand, are complicated by the fact that his violent, abusive and ultimately criminal behavior extended to the production of that music. His horrifying treatment of Ronnie Spector, his second wife, is well chronicled, and his abuse by no means stopped there. Darlene Love says she was a victim of cruel, controlling business tactics; others including JOHN LENNON, LEONARD COHEN and the RAMONES, who came calling in later years, were threatened with guns and/or literally held captive while working with Spector. And yet they kept calling, at least for a while. The Guardian's LAURA SNAPES argues that Spector's lasting influence was not just as a pop auteur but also as an "exploitative music svengali whose work is too lucrative for him to be held to account." The producer who's all but allowed to get away with murder. Snapes draws a line from him to KIM FOWLEY, R. KELLY, RUSSELL SIMMONS, RYAN ADAMS, DETAIL and others. When it came to actual murder—the killing of actress LANA CLARKSON at his house on Feb. 2, 2003—he could no longer get away, though he did his best for several years before he was finally charged, tried and convicted. Wyman quotes from as astonishing ESQUIRE magazine profile done in the interim, in which, in Wyman's words, Clarkson "is treated with palpable contempt"—by the writer. How are we, now, in death, to treat a contemptible man who made heartbreakingly beautiful music? The question, like his music, like his life, will probably always be complicated and contentious. Two truths "exist side by side," RANDALL ROBERTS writes in the LA Times. "F*** You, Dead Phil Spector," counters Wonkette's ROBIN PENNACCCHIA. Ronnie Spector, who has talked and written in detail about the abuse she survived, remembered her ex this weekend as "a brilliant producer, but a lousy husband." "Many lives were damaged," she goes on, before ending on this: "I still smile whenever I hear the music we made together, and always will. The music will be forever"... LADY GAGA, GARTH BROOKS, JENNIFER LOPEZ and JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE will be among the musicians helping America inaugurate President JOE BIDEN and Vice President KAMALA HARRIS today, along with the Showtime Marching Band from Harris' alma mater, Howard University. The LA Times has collected musical highlights from past inaugurations, while Billboard compares today's inaugural fest lineup with the 2017 version... On President Trump's pardon list: LIL WAYNE, KODAK BLACK, DEATH ROW RECORDS co-founder MICHAEL "HARRY-O" HARRIS (with a reported assist from SNOOP DOGG) and ROC NATION CEO DESIREE PEREZ... In custody: rapper YFN LUCCI, in an Atlanta murder case, and ICED EARTH guitarist JON RYAN SCHAFFER, who federal authorities say was among the rioters who stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6... RIP gospel singer DURANICE PACE; country guitarist JASON "ROWDY" COPE; jazz pianist JUNIOR MANCE; composer/arranger SAMMY NESTICO; INXS manager CHRIS MURPHY; soul and gospel singer WINFIELD PARKER; hip-hop producer JAHADE CHANCEY, murdered on Saturday at the door of his Staten Island recording studio; and longtime Tacoma News Tribune music critic RICK NELSON. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| The producer made countless contributions to music, but his ego overshadowed them all. | | |
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| Two truths exist side by side, which is why I hesitantly raised my hand to write about Spector’s work as a producer and the power he unleashed on the world from a storefront recording studio on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood. | | |
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| Columbia Journalism Review |
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| JayQuan talks with the legendary Sugar Hill House Band Percussionist and co writer of The Message: Duke Bootee. | | |
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| The 17-year-old decided to place "my deepest insecurities in a four-minute song." With "Drivers License" debuting atop the Hot 100 and smashing streaming records, those vulnerabilities have changed the modern music industry. | | |
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| After a review, the Justice Department decided against undoing decades-old consent decrees that govern music industry licensing. | | |
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| While we were disappointed that no action was taken, we are encouraged to see how the DOJ’s approach to these issues has evolved. | | |
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| The singer talks her four Grammy nominations, Taylor Swift comparisons, and more, all while quarantined at home. | | |
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| UK politicians just grilled the heads of the three major labels in the market. It did not go well. | | |
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| | | 'cause i'm close to the edge |
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| The passage of the Save Our Stages Act, which started as a mere hashtag to spread awareness of the plight of local venues across the country but became a $15 billion relief package for a large chunk of the live music ecosystem, seemed all but impossible. That it passed during a lame duck session of Congress was nothing short of a holiday miracle. | | |
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| Spector, who has died aged 81, created a culture of cruelty that was seen by the music industry as a symptom of genius. It’s a scenario that has played out again and again. | | |
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| Madlib has always seemed more concerned with making music than with the question of what to do with it. The forty-seven-year-old producer and multi-instrumentalist has estimated that he makes hundreds of beats a week, many of which he never shares with anyone. His beats are a form of homage. | | |
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| Soft, spooky whispers have become a dominant force in everything from folk to hip-hop, and it’s only going to get bigger. | | |
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| Some of the UK's biggest music stars sign an open letter demanding action over post-Brexit touring. | | |
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| Founder Wang Hao’s laid back style was reflected in Xiami’s philosophy of focusing on the music first but it may have also contributed to the decline. | | |
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| For one critic, 2020 scrambled long-held beliefs on objectivity and community. | | |
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| Simon Reynolds on pop and rock history’s obsession with disguise. | | |
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