The Wrecking Crew (17 page)

With a frenetic, charismatic stage presence and arguably the most powerful set of female pipes in the business, Tina Turner was a musical force of nature. As the lead singer next to her guitar-playing husband in the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, a gospel-tinged funk and soul act, she was the estrogen-fueled R & B equivalent of James Brown—and then some. Particularly when it came to her ability to squeeze every gut-wrenching ounce of pathos and believability out of a set of lyrics, the undeniably potent Turner didn't so much sing a song; she
became
it.

Figuring the marriage of Tina Turner's voice and his Wall of Sound production technique (with the Wrecking Crew playing the instruments, of course) to be the ultimate musical union, Spector poured every bit of his ingenuity and creativity into staging what he hoped would be his finest three minutes plus of vinyl. He even co-wrote a power ballad called “River Deep, Mountain High” specifically for the project with his longtime collaborators Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry. It seemed like the halcyon days of the early Sixties were on the verge of a triumphant return. The pieces were nicely lining up.

After Spector somehow shoehorned a handpicked throng of over twenty top musicians into Gold Star's tiny Studio A, and with Turner laying down a magnificent, fevered vocal performance, the final mix of “River Deep, Mountain High” had all the apparent makings of a huge success, perhaps the most significant symphonic statement of his career.

But it was not to be.

KRLA, which had been given the local exclusive, was lukewarm about it from the start. Other important radio stations, like WMCA in New York and WDRC in Hartford, flatly deemed the overwrought production to be way too much, a bunch of noise. It sounded out-of-synch with anything else on the air. Top 40 radio was an ever-changing animal, just like Sonny Bono had tried to explain to Spector, back when he still worked for him.

Even several of those in the Wrecking Crew who had listened afterward to the tape playback were disappointed. Turner's raw, goosebump-inducing performance, practically a sexual experience for them to be a part of when they cut the song live with her, now sounded washed out with the excessive amount of echo Spector had slathered all over it in the booth.

But the esteemed producer thought he knew better than everyone else, and now he had a flamingly public failure on his hands to show for it. The song, meant to be his crowning achievement, instead barely crept its way into the Hot 100, lodged at an anemic number eighty-eight for just one week, and then dropped off altogether.

By the early summer of 1966, around the time that “River Deep, Mountain High” finally sank beneath the waves, Michel Rubini retrieved a message one day from Arlyn's Answering Service (the telephone exchange most of the musicians used) saying that Phil Spector wanted him to play on an upcoming studio date. Having become one of the producer's favorites, Rubini gave the call little thought, other than to log the day and time into his schedule book. He knew that the big, ill-fated single on which he had played hadn't done well. And he knew that Spector had been counting on its success. But more releases than not failed to make it. That was just a fact of life in the music business.

When Rubini entered Gold Star for the recording session a few days later, it seemed like business as usual to him. The same batch of Wrecking Crew players, with whom he was now firmly entrenched, were all there, as was the usual engineer, Larry Levine.

After Spector's arranger, Jack Nitzsche, gave everyone their chord charts and told them basically what was needed, they began rehearsing the song. As always, the collective members of the Wrecking Crew expected the mercurial producer to interrupt them countless times along the way as the more complex layers of the material began to fully take shape in his mind.

But on this night, nothing. Not a peep. No words were spoken to them for almost three straight hours, practically the entire length of the session. The silence was eerie, not to mention unprecedented. And none of what they had been working on had been recorded, either. Committing everything to tape, listening to the playback, and then repeating the process ad infinitum was the Spector way. His
only
way. Something was clearly wrong.

As the session neared its end, the mystified musicians finally heard a voice over the speaker say, “Okay, thanks everybody. That's it for tonight. The session's over.”

Over?
They hadn't even done one complete take yet. But, as usual, there was no time to sit around and chat about the strangeness of the evening or about anything else. For many of them, if not most, another session at another studio immediately awaited.

As the musicians all began to file out, Rubini lagged behind. He had become a friend of the producer's and was frankly worried. The absolute lack of communication was way out of character, even by the enigmatic Spector's standards.

Happening to notice the producer through the control booth glass sitting alone in a corner, Rubini decided he had better check things out.

“Phil, is everything okay? What happened?” Rubini gently inquired as he stepped inside the small room.

Spector made no answer. Instead, he just stared blankly into space in the general direction of the studio's oversized set of playback monitors.

“Phil?
Phil?
”

Still no answer.

Finally, without shifting his heavy-lidded, trance-like gaze, Spector faintly mumbled, “Uh, yeah, yeah, everything's fine.”

But everything wasn't fine. Rubini could see that. He had never witnessed anyone, let alone Spector, in such a weirdly catatonic state. And it wasn't drugs, either. Rubini had seen enough of that in the clubs to know the difference.

As the pianist debated about what to do next, the door opened again. It was Larry Levine, back from taking down some of the expensive mics out in the studio.

“Larry, what's going on?” Rubini whispered, now genuinely alarmed.

“Something's not right. Phil's having a problem, that's all. Don't worry about it,” Levine quietly replied. “We'll take care of him. You go on home.”

Like the fictional actress Norma Desmond's sad, misguided attempt at a comeback in the classic film
Sunset Boulevard,
Spector's time also had passed. He hadn't made the Top 40 charts in more than half a year, an eternity in his world. Having hidden behind a well-practiced façade of indifference for some time, the man who had given life to the Wrecking Crew so long before now seemed to Rubini to have finally had some kind of breakdown, very possibly relating to the “River Deep” failure. And he felt genuine sympathy for the producer. Growing up with a famous musician for a father had provided the young pianist with a front-row seat to what the unrelenting pressures of trying to keep a toehold in the business could do to a person. Especially someone as gifted and sensitive as Spector.

As Michel Rubini headed for the door, he stopped for a moment, turned, and softly said, “See you around, Phil. Take care.”

9

Eve of Destruction

Steve, what did you do with the … tape?

—L
OU
A
DLER

If one person in the history of popular music could ever be compared to Leonardo da Vinci in terms of his breadth of accomplishments, it would have to be a chain-smoking, electronics-obsessed ex–Boy Scout from Danville, Illinois, by the name of Bill Putnam.

Born in 1920, the unusually gifted Putnam was nothing if not a whirlwind of activity. Growing up in a middle-class household during the Great Depression, if he wasn't building crystal sets from scratch he was fixing people's tube radios. By high school, he had managed to create an intricate homemade neighborhood telegraph system that was far beyond the scope of his peers. After an honorable discharge from the Army at the end of World War II, Putnam's unabated fascination with all things sound and audio led him to a critical decision: he would permanently focus his career on the development of new recording techniques and new technical equipment, specifically in regard to high-end studio use.

Soon thereafter, with the help of two partners and twenty grand in seed money, Putnam built Universal Recording in Chicago, one of America's first independent (i.e., not owned by a record label) recording studios and an eventual landmark. Thanks to his stellar work there behind the mixing console—which, naturally, he also hand-built—luminaries such as Sarah Vaughan, Patti Page, and Duke Ellington raved to anyone who would listen about his rare abilities. At the same time, the obsessively tinkering Putnam, with his trademark cigarette forever in hand, devised a number of groundbreaking in-studio innovations, including the first use of tape repeat, the first drum booth, the first use of artificial reverb, the first multiple-voice recording technique, and one of the first uses of eight-track recording. In addition, he designed every inch of the acoustic wall and ceiling treatments, occasionally wrote songs, and even tuned the pianos when needed.

In 1958, at the repeated urging of Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Quincy Jones, and several other major music figures—all now chums, as well as clients—Putnam boldly sold his interest in the thriving Universal Recording and moved to the West Coast. There he founded a new company called United Recording on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood and promptly set about building the finest studio of its kind.

Located inside a massive old movie soundstage once owned by a predecessor of Columbia Pictures, the refurbished structure was a sight and sound to behold. The perfectionist Putnam had painstakingly put together his dream layout, consisting of two giant custom-designed studio tracking rooms (plus one smaller one)—all with immaculate acoustics—plus a dedicated mixdown room, three mastering rooms, and a small record-manufacturing plant. There was even a large stereo echo chamber attached to the roof of the edifice for use by all the studios. And with the addition of many of the West Coast's best audio engineers, guys like Eddie Brackett, Chuck Britz, Winston Wong, Phil Kaye, Captain Nemo, Wally Heider, Lee Herschberg, and Bones Howe (who was the only freelancer among the bunch), it didn't take long for United to become the busiest independent recording studio in town, acing out both Radio Recorders and Gold Star for top honors.

But Putnam wasn't finished. He also acquired the former Radio Center Theater across the parking lot from United, turning it into Western Recorders, where it instantly became the favored haunt of younger acts like the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, and Johnny Rivers. Now Putnam had all of his stylistic bases covered, with the name-brand crooners and the big-time orchestras generally choosing to work in one building (United's Studio A or Studio B) and the rock and rollers mostly opting for the more intimate atmosphere of the other building (usually Western's smaller Studio 3).

By the mid-Sixties, Bill Putnam's United/Western colossus was putting out more hits than any other studio in town, independent or label owned. It was also about to become the recording home for a flurry of some of the most important songs in popular music history. And one of those on the list—with its stark, unabashedly anti-establishment message—would come courtesy of the combined efforts of Lou Adler, two of his young songwriter/producers, and, as usual, several members of the Wrecking Crew.

*   *   *

Growing up in Brooklyn during the Forties and early Fifties, Steve Lipkin realized from an early age one singularly defining characteristic about himself: he desperately wanted to be in the music business. Having attended a live show at Radio City Music Hall that had left him reeling with joy, Lipkin came away from the experience with the abiding notion of becoming either a disc jockey or a songwriter. With no readily apparent gift for either singing or playing an instrument, the twin arts of spinning records and writing songs seemed like the most plausible ways to make a living.

Moving to Los Angeles with his family in 1954, Lipkin soon immersed himself in that city's thriving new rock-and-roll culture. Like so many others before him who would one day make a career in the field of music (including Herb Alpert, Jerry Stoller, and the opera singer Jerome Hines), Lipkin attended Fairfax High School, quickly becoming friendly with a number of aspiring songwriters and musicians there, such as Phil Spector, Marshall Leib, and Annette Kleinbard (aka Carol Connors) of the Teddy Bears.

Ever consumed with putting pen to paper and sounds to vinyl, in 1961, at the age of nineteen, Lipkin (now known professionally as Steve Barri) ended up recording a demo of one of his compositions with Connors and her sister on co-lead vocals called “When Two People (Are in Love).” Though the beautiful little ballad garnered but a small amount of local airplay, it did manage to catch the ear of Lou Adler, who heard it one day on KFWB. Adler, at the time the head of A & R for Colpix Records (a subsidiary of Columbia Pictures), got in touch with Barri and told him he wanted to put the song out nationally. Though the higher-ups at the label ultimately nixed his plan, Adler hired Barri instead as a staff writer for Screen Gems Music Publishing, a sister company. It would prove to be one of the smartest moves Adler ever made.

At the same time, a kid named Philip Schlein, who had a remarkably similar background to that of Barri, also dreamed of a career in music. Born in New York in 1945, Schlein moved with his family to Los Angeles just before entering the seventh grade, where he immediately began to make
his
musical mark. An unusually skilled guitarist for his age, the intelligent, dark-haired boy had an equal facility for writing songs and singing, putting him far ahead of most of his peers. Though his parents were not the least bit encouraging about his all-consuming fascination with music, Schlein never let it hold him back.

Both resourceful and determined, at the age of twelve Schlein took the bus one day to an open audition he had heard about at a place called Aladdin Records on West Pico Boulevard. When the dust settled after a long afternoon of waiting around with over a hundred others who were much older, Schlein miraculously found himself as the one candidate chosen to record a song for the little R & B label called “I Don't Care If the Sun Don't Shine.” Though the final product never made it onto the charts, the enthralling experience of actually being inside a recording studio solidified his interest in becoming a professional musician.