It was like my farewell. I was just saying goodbye, and just wanted to go crazy, you know, for a few minutes—four minutes on wax, that’s all it was. I loved it, and enjoyed making it, but I didn’t think there was anything for the public.

- Phil Spector on ‘River Deep - Mountain High’

Ike and Tina Turner Revue were mostly an inner city, hardcore Rhythm and Blues act that worked nightclubs. Spector happened to see the act perform on the TNT Show—in front of a mostly white audience who were greatly enthused by the act. The producer, Spector was immediately impressed with Tina Turner’s powerful and acerbic vocal styling, and figured he could make some hit records with them. He wanted to do something unlike anything that had been done before, and top what many considered his greatest record, ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin,’ by Righteous Brothers.

He recruited Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, part of the Brill Building writing guild, that wrote so many hit songs during the early sixties. It took the couple an intensive week to write the song about love, particularly a woman’s pain and loneliness and dependence on a man.

When I was a little girl,
I had a rag doll
The only doll I ever owned
Now, I love you just as much as I loved that rag doll
Only know my love has grown

Spector crammed two dozen musicians into a crowded studio. These included four guitarists, four basses, many keyboard players, a huge brass section and two drummers. He would have the players’ do run—throughs, and go home and listen to the tapes, always finding some flaw in them. With Spector—who had perfect pitch, every note had to be just right, and sound like what he heard in his head. Tina felt the song was rather bizarre, and had to do take after take, while sweat drenched from her body—her lower stomach throbbing in pain.

There was mixed reviews of the final record—some felt it was muddy and over produced and noisy. The general consensus in America was that the record was too black for white radio stations to play, and too white for the black stations to play. In the states the record debuted at No. 88, and didn’t move any further. It was a different story in Britain though, where Spector was adored and the record went to No. 3. Phil Spector believed it was the greatest record he had ever produced, and I find it difficult to disagree. Even though he has produced so many great records in the past. This record was the acme of “The Wall of Sound,” and had all his influences crammed into it. And it shows the history of rock n roll, beginning in its gospel roots, there’s a jazz, classical and Latin music influence to the record. A strange hybrid of sound, Spector made all his own. As good as Pop music gets.

Damion Hamilton lives in St. Louis Missouri. He works in a warehouse you know, so that he can pay for stuff. He had few friends in high school; so he would spend his lunch hour in the school library reading Edgar Allen Poe and encyclopaedias. He didn't really become serious about writing poetry until he was twenty. That's when he read Arthur Rimbaud's, ‘A Season In Hell’ and he's been writing poetry ever since. He walks the streets, or drives around the streets of this city at night: seeing, hearing, feeling and thinking about things. Sometimes he's fortunate enough, to get these things down in a notebook or on a typewriter. To read a selection of Damion’s writing on the showcase section of this site, click here.

© 2007 Laura Hird All rights reserved.