Inventor of the Wall of Sound Behind Bars, probably for the rest of his life.

Today is the first birthday (his 70th), but certainly not the last, that legendary record producer Phil Spector will spend in prison. He is currently serving a 19 year to life sentence for second degree murder. I won't attempt to condense his career (which left an indelible mark on the sound of popular American music) into a thumbnail sketch in this post. But I will share this moment below that marks the beginning of a brilliant career that had fizzled and has now presumably ended in such a ugly and tragic way. That's the young Mr. Spector playing guitar and singing back up on a song he wrote and produced in 1958. The song was inspired by the epitaph on his father's grave. Benjamin Spector had taken his own life about a decade before this song was released. The song went to #1 on the Billboard Charts and has been covered, in some cases with slightly rearranged lyrics, by many.