Phil Spector dies at 81 after contracting COVID-19

17 January 2021

Revolutionary and controversial music producer Phil Spector has died from COVID-19 related complications at the age of 81.

Spector was diagnosed with COVID four weeks ago and was transferred from his prison cell at California Health Care Facility in Stockton – where he was serving a 19 years-to-life sentence for the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson – to a hospital.

He recovered enough to return to jail but he relapsed and struggled with breathing and returned to a hospital where he died on Saturday.

In his prime, Phil Spector was as much a star as the musical artists he produced. He made the Top 10 fourteen times between 1958 and 1965, creating a signature sonic avalanche in the studio known as  “the Wall of Sound” which revolutionised popular music and aided such acts as The Crystals, The Ronettes, The Beach Boys, The Righteous Brothers, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and The Ramones.