Phil Spector was born in 1939 in the Bronx district of New York.

Already in high school he started writing his own songs.

Spector's father committed suicide in 1949 and for his tombstone relatives chose the inscription "To know him was to love him".

That line turned Spector into the song, "To know him is to love him" and recorded it with The Teddy Bears, the band he formed with high school friends and which he himself was part of.

Became a hit

The song became a hit and in 1958 it reached number one on the Billboard charts.

Phil Spector met several influential people in the music industry, such as Lester Sill, Lee Hazelwood's business partner.

He hired Spector as a producer for his record label Trey Records and trained him.

Spector co-wrote the song "Spanish Harlem" with Ben E King in 1960.

The following year, Phil Spector and Lester Sill formed their own record label, Philles Records, and their careers took off.

The hits that followed include "Unchained melody" with Righteous Brothers, "Be my baby" with The Ronettes, "Da doo ron ron" and "Then he kissed me" with The Crystals and "River deep, mountain high" with Ike & Tina Turner.

In 1963 he released the Christmas album "A christmas gift for you", where a bunch of artists on Philles Records interpreted famous Christmas classics.

He married Ronnie Crawford, singer of The Ronettes, in 1968. She later said that he kept her locked up in their home in California until she managed to get out of there barefoot in 1972. She has claimed that the reason she gave up all her future musical rights and the custody of their (adopted) children in the divisive divorce hearing in 1974 was that Phil Spector threatened her with hiring an assassin to kill her.

Produced by the Beatles

The end of the "Wall of sound" era was "River deep, mountain high" in 1966, which flopped in the US, but became a hit in Europe.

Phil Spector was invited by John Lennon and George Harrison to produce their already finished recordings for the Beatles album "Let it be" in 1970. This led to a collaboration with Lennon and Harrison and that Spector produced several of their solo albums, Harrison's "All things must" pass ”and Lennon’s“ Plastic Ono Band ”as well as“ Imagine ”.

In 2003, Phil Spector was arrested on suspicion of murdering actress Lana Clarkson.

She was found shot to death in Spector's home after meeting him at the House of Blues in Hollywood where she worked.

Spector claimed that the actor committed suicide.

The trial dragged on for several years because the jury was not unanimous in its verdict.

Finally, in 2009, he was sentenced to at least 19 years in prison.

According to TMZ, Phil Spector was infected with corona a month ago, but recovered and was taken back to prison.

He got worse on Sunday and died in hospital, 81 years old.