When the opening credits to Martin Scorsese’s “Mean Streets” roll, we hear “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes on the soundtrack. When Henry Hill guides Karen through the Copacabana in the famous Steadicam shot in 1990’s “Goodfellas,” the Crystals’ “Then He Kissed Me” accompanies them every step of the way. In the same film, Scorsese needle-drops George Harrison’s “What Is Life” into the frenetic sequence in which Henry is trying to keep one step ahead of the authorities. That same year, in the iconic pottery sequence in “Ghost,” Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore get lost in each other to the sounds of “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Bros.
These four songs have one thing in common: They were produced by Phil Spector, who was also the man behind the curtain — or should we say, the Wall of Sound — for “Chapel of Love,” “Imagine,” “Let It Be,” “The Long and Winding Road,” “My Sweet Lord,” “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling,” “River Deep — Mountain High,” et al. There’s no denying Spector’s place as a legendary producer — and his legacy as a manipulative, narcissistic, unpredictable, hot-tempered and deeply troubled figure whose decades-long pattern of unstable behavior reached a horrific and tragic nadir on Feb. 3, 2003, when Spector shot and killed actress Lana Clarkson in his mansion in Alhambra, California.
